


The Spider and the Flight

by InfiniteJess, Regularity



Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Spider-Woman (Comic)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Jess is the Hero of this Tale, Mind Manipulation, caroljess - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteJess/pseuds/InfiniteJess, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regularity/pseuds/Regularity
Summary: Jessica Drew--aka Spider-Woman--and her girlfriend Carol Danvers--aka Captain Marvel--work together to stop the invasion of some unknown spider-like creatures in downtown NYC. But even a successful mission has unexpected consequences.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew
Comments: 34
Kudos: 25





	1. The Grit Under My Fingernails Isn't Dirt

**Author's Note:**

> A story about Jessica and Carol, on what one will do to save the other, on the darkness inside even the brightest star. This will resolve happily, but it's gonna get pretty rough in the middle.
> 
> A quick note about Regularity being added as a co-creator: I am both Regularity and InfiniteJess, and I decided to migrate The Spider and the Flight to my main account. This account was originally going to be for more mature fics, but Regularity is now home to a fairly mature Aerith/Tifa fic, so no reason to keep them separated as of now.
> 
> InfiniteJess is being retired. There will still not be explicit/porn fics under Regularity.

Jessica Drew has been a victim of circumstance, a victim of manipulation, a victim of brainwashing, and more. She was replaced by a Skrull Queen once upon a time, and it took years to rebuild the trust she had only just started to think she might deserve.

Jessica Drew has trust issues, herself. She’s been lied to, betrayed, harassed. Some of them she even knows about.

Jessica Drew is many things. A victim. A mother. A friend. A mentor. A confidante. A lover. 

The one thing Jessica Drew is not: Sorry.

Jessica Drew is not about to apologize for the life she’s been forced to lead. For the decisions she’s had to make. For the friends she’s lost, the opportunities squandered.

Jessica Drew is Spider-Woman. Hydra couldn’t contain her. SHIELD didn’t know how to support her. The Avengers never fully accepted her. Private eye couldn’t sustain her. She found new purpose in her son, in her friendships, in the only person whose mind she had been inside and shared the most intimate of memories.

Carol Danvers and Jessica Drew are a quandary to the outside world. But they say opposites attract and the light can’t exist without darkness to show how bright it truly is.

What the world never understood was this: 

Jessica Drew is not the darkness. 

The glass glittered and vanished as every streetlight within a mile shattered, raining shards and singing a million tiny songs, a million muffled screams.

In the new darkness crept the creatures, stalking prey.

A man screamed as he was snapped up. A dog barked and then whimpered as it saw the eyes of death.

In the new darkness, a spider came alive.

“Are you seeing this, Cap?” Spider-Woman asked into her communication device, her British accent sharp and decisive. 

Through the comms Captain Marvel answered, “Not seeing much of anything, suddenly.”

“Flash those big, beautiful pearly whites for me, would you? There’s something crawling around down here.”

Spider-Woman waited on the side of a building, suspended from it as if she were crouched on the floor and leaning on the wall. Only the ground was 80 feet below her right this second. Her outfit was dark, a recommendation for this mission specifically, but she didn’t have to like it.

Too much like Miles. Too much like Peter. Not enough of Jessica Drew. The tiny triangles of yellow hardly made up for the rest of it, but a subterfuge of this nature required sacrifice, and it wasn’t like she’d be stuck in this new suit forever.

Captain Marvel erupted into a brilliant nova of light in the street, cascading pulses of white echoing out of her body, illuminating the darkened streets.

Giving the creatures no time to scuttle away from the light. 

Long, spindly legs attached to small, scaly orbs only generously called a body. So many legs Spider-Woman lost count. More than a spider, though.

And, she thought, probably more deadly.

They hissed and darted for alleys, sewer grates, open windows, trash cans. Anywhere that Captain Marvel’s searing photon bursts couldn’t reach them.

But Spider-Woman leapt into action, her wingsuit guiding her down on currents of hot city air. She soared down past Captain Marvel, bumping fists as they intersected briefly, smiles for each other: often only for each other.

Spider-Woman pulled herself aloft inches from the sidewalk, barreling down on one of the spindly creatures and kicking it into a brick wall, where it shattered like so much streetlight glass.

Another hissed and spat poison at Spider-Woman, who bent back into a momentary crabwalk, narrowly missing the toxin. She might have survived it with her poison immunity, but better not to test it.

And glad she did, as the spray of putrid green melted the brick wall where it landed, and Spider-Woman coughed from the acrid tang of melting bricks.

“Do I need to be the big damn hero?” Captain Marvel said, flying in tight formation, shoving her light into any crevice that would accept it. Monsters hissed, some died outright.

Others avoided it, and Spider-Woman gave chase.

She slid under another acid splash, green radiating from her fists. A one-two punch knocked the beast into a streetlight pole, where it bent the metal before the whole thing disintegrated, just like the one before it.

“You’re doing your part, let the spider catch the fly.” Her senses tickled at the nape of her neck and she jumped into the air as one of the creatures tried to tackle her from behind. It skittered against the sidewalk, but dropped from a well-aimed Venom Blast, where it lay still and motionless. Then disintegrated while she landed in a crouch.

“These things are relentless,” Captain Marvel hissed. “Should we call the backup?”

Spider-Woman grinned as she checked her surroundings. “The only thing we’re calling is the game, because it’s a shutout.”

“Like you know anything about sports.”

“I’m rather fond of shin-digging, thank you very much.”

Captain Marvel landed roughly next to Jess, leaving a slight impact crater. “What about a shindig?”

“Nothing about that. We should probably stop flirting and get back to the plague of daddy long legs on acid tearing through downtown.”

Captain Marvel grinned and leaned in close. “You know I can multi-task.” She pecked Spider-Woman on the cheek with a small kiss, and grabbed her by the arm. 

“Ready to launch?”

“My shoulder’s still sore from the last time.” But Spider-Woman nodded, tensing up. 

“Alley oop!” Captain Marvel launched upwards, pulling Spider-Woman with her, and then threw her into the sky, where she climbed higher and higher, darting upwards in a pencil formation until she nearly cleared the tallest buildings. At the apex of her ascent, she shifted her body and arms into a glide. Her suit’s underarm webbing extended at the motion of her arms, and caught an air current. 

Captain Marvel shot up next to her, performing a tight aerial loop around Spider-Woman with her glowing feet leaving trails in the night sky, before she grinned and dropped back to the city below, rocketing towards the city center, where screams and shouts freshly called out.

Whatever these creatures were doing, they could blanket an area in darkness as they hunted for prey.

Spider-Woman followed the blazing trail of her partner, admiring more than her aerial form as she descended into the darkness to destroy it with just her presence.

Spider-Woman glided down, where dozens of the creatures scattered in all directions. She followed one particularly vicious group of them chasing down a family, and dropped in front of the creatures just as they had the five innocent victims cornered in an alley. All was dark here, away from Captain Marvel’s light. Spider-Woman charged up her fists and pounded one fist into an open palm, arcing the green electric energy out at the oncoming nightmares.

They reeled back, but it was too late for them. The blast ripped through them, shredding them before they disintegrated. 

Spider-Woman turned to the huddled family, two dads and several kids. She lit up her fist with green energy again so they could see, and smiled. 

“Don’t you hate it when you can’t even make bad jokes at the bad guys?”

The taller of the dads gulped. “S-sure. Are we safe now?” 

“Keep moving away from downtown, and you and your kids will be just fine.”

One of the kids, a young boy clutching a Spidey mask--Miles, not Peter--waved. “Is Spider-Man here, too?”

She reached down with her non-glowing hand and chucked him on the chin. “Not tonight. Spider-Woman’s on the case, though.”

The Spidey kids were off-dimension, helping out some Spider-person somewhere in the vast dimensional space. Peter was playing Spider-Dad. In the meantime, New York wouldn’t save itself, and Spider-Woman called in the only support she knew she’d need.

“Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman will keep you safe!” she called as she leapt onto a wall and crawled away, looking for more creatures to fight.

And find them she did. Captain Marvel was blasting them at every angle, but the creatures had stopped spreading out. They were now swarming her as she spun in midair, creating a pile of the creatures under her, that began to collapse as the ones beneath the recently dead began to dissolve or disintegrate. Some climbed buildings and jumped down, fangs bared, but a burst of energy from Captain Marvel took them out.

Spider-Woman jumped and glided to her partner, signaling through comms she was coming in for the power move.

Captain Marvel’s energy dimmed as Spider-Woman caught hold of her outstretched hand, hung on it easily with her ability to cling to surfaces, and Captain Marvel capable of holding far more than Spider-Woman weighed.

“You ready?” Captain Marvel asked, her fist beginning to glow with the power of a photon blast. 

“When am I not?” Spider-Woman charged up her own fist of Venom Blast energy. She’d used a lot, and unlike her girlfriend here, her supply was not seemingly limitless, but she had enough for this. The showstopper.

As more of the ink-black spider-things crawled over each other to get to the pair of them, and they dove out of the sky, and spat acid narrowly avoided, Captain Marvel twirled, her sash spinning with Spider-Woman. The alternate yellow and green energies swirled around into a faster and faster vortex, pushing away the creatures as they jumped and reached.

The place had cleared of people. It was safe to do this, if not for the surrounding infrastructure, at least it would incinerate the rest of the creatures.

Spider-Woman and Captain Marvel released their energies into the vortex, where it splintered and melded, flashing out like a laser light show in all directions, flash-burning and electrocuting all the creatures into ash, or dust, or whatever they were.

Reeling from the dizzying tornado, Spider-Woman let herself cling to Captain Marvel as she surveyed the scene.

“Looks like that was the last of ‘em,” Captain Marvel said, lifting Spider-Woman up with ease, so that they were face to face.

“Next time, we get to fight someone I can quip at.”

Captain Marvel smiled and pulled Spider-Woman in close. They embraced in midair, and though Spider-Woman had never really gotten used to this, sometimes she just didn’t care.

“You can always use your sharp tongue on me, Jessica Drew.”

Spider-Woman kissed her, their lips meeting in a halted breath. Cheers and catcalls met them as they came to settle on the street amid the dust of the defeated monstrosities. The people came out of hiding; cell phones flashed pictures. 

Spider-Woman leaned into Captain Marvel now that they stood on the ground. “Twenty says they bury us in the clickbait.”

Captain Marvel whispered, “Two to one we’re trending in an hour, Drew.”

Spider-Woman scoffed. “Nobody died. Everything’s safe. We are not that interesting.”

“Gossip makes for good clicks.” 

Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, looked out to the people as they were coming out of buildings, from behind cars. Smile and wave, the diplomatic hero’s calling card.

“Let’s head out. I need to check on Gerry anyway.”

“Spoilsport.”

Spider-Woman waved once to the assembling masses, blew a kiss for good measure, and grinned sardonically at Carol. “Jessica Drew, mother and party pooper. We have some Netflix to binge.”

“We have paperwork, and debriefing.”

“Correction: I have a teething toddler to deal with. You can handle the rest.”

Carol sighed. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“You’re lucky I don’t abuse it. Now fly me home, would you?”

Captain Marvel gave one last wave to the crowd and took off, Spider-Woman in her arms. 

Jessica let herself be carried, snuggled into the warmth of Carol Danvers, nibbling playfully at her exposed neck.

Carol moaned softly. “Don’t go starting something we can’t finish right now.”

“It’ll give you incentive to turn your debriefing into a debri.”

Jessica glanced out at the world as they flew at breakneck pace, yet in Carol’s arms everything felt slower.

“I’ll hopefully have the little terror in bed by the time you get there.” She breathed in Carol’s ear. “Very brief, if you please.”

Carol Danvers shuddered with anticipation and Jessica Drew thrilled at the reaction she could always get from the woman.

She dropped Jessica on her balcony many stories up, held her for a brief moment while hovering in place, and let her helmet drop away, revealing her eyes heavy with desire. 

Jessica let her fingers twine into Carol’s long blonde hair, and whispered, “So brief.” Then pushed Carol backwards playfully and turned away. The woman chuckled and flew off to deal with intel and the boring bits.

Jessica heaved a sigh as she looked inside the apartment, seeing the babysitter watching TV with Gerry in his playpen. The girl was deceptively older than she appeared, trained in emergencies local and intergalactic. A SHIELD trainee on loan for when the big boy hero work had to be done.

To have had those resources in San Francisco. 

She missed San Fran sometimes, but being where Carol was--when she was onworld--was more important. Besides, she could get to San Francisco in minutes via any number of improbable teleportation and transportation methods socked away in the Avengers HQ, or the Baxter Building, or Stark Tower, or even Dr. Strange’s manse.

Inside, the babysitter clocked Jessica’s arrival, waited for her to come in, and stood, saluting.

“Don’t go treating me like I can tell you what to do,” Jessica said, pulling her mask off and rubbing at her face where it pressed against her skin. These skintight suits were useful, loaded with tech and quality of life adjustments since the early days, but she always felt like sausage pressed into too small a casing when she dressed down.

“Yes, Ms. Drew,” the girl said. “Everything okay with the spinnerets?”

“Someone named them already?” She groaned. “Sure. They’re so much dust. I’ll never get it out of my hair.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. It’s an unusual team, you and Cap, isn’t it?”

“Unusual is everything in my life, kid. You’ll see before too long. How was Gerry? Give you any trouble?” She peeled off the rest of her outfit and tossed on a robe before lifting Gerry out of his playpen, and he gabbled happily. He was almost at the point of saying, you know, real words, and she hoped desperately not to miss the first one.

“He’s a little prince. Fussed a bit over dinner, but he’s been energetic for a while. Only got him to calm down a few minutes ago.”

Excellent, Jessica thought. “Maybe I can get him to bed without the whole world waking up from his yelling tonight.”

“Well, I’ll be going if you don’t need anything else.”

Jessica waved a hand dismissively. “You’re fine, rookie. You’ll be off sitting duty before too long, I’m sure.”

“Maybe they’ll assign me to your team someday.”

“Pft, that would mean I had a team. This spider glides solo nine times out of ten.”

“You’ve been on a dozen teams over the years, though.”

“And I’m not on any of them now, what’s that tell you?”

“Of course. Sorry, Ms. Drew. Have a pleasant night.”

Jessica locked the door behind the woman, glad to be rid of the official nonsense. If she could get Gerry to sleep, she could shower off the grime and dust before Carol got home. 

And then they’d see just how well Jessica’s flirtatious teasing worked.

Captain Marvel landed on the rooftop of the Avengers HQ here in Manhattan, not very far from Jessica’s apartment. Her insides burned with desire the blasted woman sparked in her, but a job was a job and someone had to report on it.

She worked to wipe the dust from her clothing and caught herself in a mirrored surface briefly. Her suit was more black than blue given how many of the weird creatures poofed to ash moments from colliding with her. She probably had it in her teeth, which made her want to gag.

And yet, she felt kind of sorry for the buggers. Whatever they were, they seemed mindless and scared. And that usually meant someone else behind a curtain somewhere, pulling strings. It was merest luck that she was onworld when this whole thing went down. Most of the Avengers were battling aliens across the galaxy. The Hell’s Kitchen contingent had their hands full with some new Hand plot. The Fantastic Four and the Spidey team were on Earth-72 or something, dealing with spider-human hybrids the size of a sedan.

And here the two of them were, ready to relax with a night in, watching Jess’s favorite show, Great British Bakeoff on Netflix. Then the reports came in. Their night interrupted. The SHIELD girl showed up to keep the kid, and handed off Jessica’s new prototype suit, which some Spider-Man fanboy had decided to bring in line with the rest of the Spider people.

But damn, the woman could pull off black.

She wiped at her own outfit again, becoming mildly concerned with how resistant the dust was being, but before she could do more than think it, the dust began to shift. It swirled and swarmed, a billion particles acting in unison.

Carol slammed the emergency beacon on the wall, and burned bright and hot to kill the--whatever it was.

And yet even after the dust was confirmed to be inert ash by Stark’s AI in the lab, Carol felt uneasy. She raised her phone to call Jessica, and then--something tickled the back of her mind not to bother. Not to get Jessica involved. She was fine, surely.

Jessica was the strongest person Carol knew. The whites of her eyes flashed black ever so briefly, and she finished her report and debriefing with a low level staffer.

She hardly noticed the vague itch behind her eyes as something took control of her body. Something black and sinister. Something that preferred the shadows. The darkness of interior spaces.

Jessica Drew was now the furthest thing from Carol’s mind as she assimilated the staffer. The custodian. The darkness spread, and Carol Danvers embraced her new mission.

To coat the world in coal-black. To smother the life. To render this world ready for its new inhabitants.

The Spinnerets, spinning their darkness. The name was invented, but the essence in charge of Carol’s body liked it. In fact, it loved it.


	2. The Sense Of Amiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica doesn't notice there's something wrong with Carol until it's too late. Jessica and Gerry's lives are at risk as Spider-Woman scrambles to form a plan and find help, as most of the city's heroes are out or unavailable.

Carol didn’t come to Jessica’s apartment for hours. Jessica fell asleep once, woke up to put Gerry back to bed, watched a few minutes of the Bakeoff and got hungry, ate a late night snack of a handful of Gerry’s cereal, and fell asleep again.

By the time the door finally opened, Jessica woke, groaned, and glanced at the time on her phone: late-o-damn-clock. She wanted to spend some time with Carol, but if it took this long to debrief, she may not even be in the mood for the other kind of debrief.

She sat up, running her hands through her thick black hair and wiping the crust from her eyes, the slight drool from her cheek. No one ever said she was a cute sleeper.

Well, Carol did, but who believes _her ?_

She checked her breath, still okay despite the midnight snack, and waited for Carol.

Only minutes passed and she never heard the woman again. Or, for that matter, the door to her apartment shut. What she heard instead was the creak of Gerry’s crib. 

Her fear spiked, but her senses were not warning her. She hopped out of bed silently, leaving the lights off and walking with the balletic grace of her assassin days. To the door to her bedroom. Listened. No footsteps. No Carol. No Gerry. 

She eased the door open from its cracked position, willing it not to creak, and followed the hallway the few steps to Gerry’s room. A faint light emanated from under and around the partially ajar door. Carol’s light.

Jessica breathed a sigh of relief, pushing the door open to find Carol Danvers playfully shushing and bouncing Jessica’s son, a slight glow about Carol as she made nonsense cutesy sounds to the boy. Only Gerry wasn’t laughing or crying or anything. He just stared at Carol as if he’d never seen her before. 

“Did you wake up the little monster?” Jessica whispered, coming in behind Carol, who was still in her sooty superhero suit. Jessica decided she didn’t care as she slipped her arms through Carol’s and pulled her into a hug, leaning her chin on Carol’s shoulder, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do because of Carol’s height, and Jessica wasn’t wearing shoes.

Carol didn’t answer, only stared at the toddler with something like confusion in her eyes. “It’s not working,” she mumbled, and rested back into Jessica’s warmth.

“What’s not?”

“Nothing. Did I wake you?”

“Of course.” She kissed Carol’s neck. “You’re not the sneaky one, you know.”

Only Jessica thought that she sure had been tonight.

“You’re rubbing off on me, Jessica.” 

Jessica laughed. “Since when do you call me that in private?”

Carol hesitated briefly, but smiled and turned her head, letting her glow die away. “I’ll rub off on you a little, if you like.”

Jessica breathed in the scent of her and let her go, feeling a slight quake of unease as she took Gerry from Carol’s arms. “Go get cleaned up and I’ll put him back down.”

Carol leaned into Gerry in the darkness left by her fading glow and whispered. “Good night, little man. We’ll figure it out soon.” She kissed him on top of his little blonde head as Jessica set him back down in his crib, smoothing his hair and wondering why the hairs on _her_ neck stood on end.

Jessica got him back to sleep, and on her way back to her bedroom saw the door to the apartment wide open, light from the hallway shining into the darkened interior.

“Carol?” Jessica whispered, approaching the door. She remembered that she never heard the door shut, and glanced out briefly before shutting it, locking it, activating the alarm.

“Right here, Jess.” Carol was right behind her, and Jessica hadn’t heard a thing!

She jumped a little and spun, finding Carol dressed down into a tank top and the pajama bottoms she kept here for overnight stays, which had been becoming more frequent of late. It was preternaturally dark in the living room in the sudden absence of the outside light, with just enough peeking from under the door that Jessica could make out her shape..

“Jesus, Care, did you float over to me?”

“Sometimes a little fear is a good thing, right?”

This was a new game for Carol Danvers, and it thrilled Jessica a little as she stood there in her jammies. “You’re stealing all my moves and all my lines tonight.”

Carol didn’t let Jessica say anything more, as she pressed into the woman, letting their bodies sink into each other. She pushed Jessica back to the door, where she hit it a little hard, even for Jessica’s tastes.

“Easy,” Jessica said, running her fingers through Carol’s shoulder-length hair. Jessica liked when Carol’s hair was long as it gave her something to play with, and she did so now while Carol attentively plied her lips down Jessica’s neck, across her exposed collar. Carol was cold to the touch wherever her lips found skin, and Jessica shuddered with unexpected pleasure.

She let out an involuntary moan and pulled back slightly on Carol’s hair, gently lifting her face up to Jessica’s. In the darkness of the living room, she couldn’t see more than silhouette, but Jessica could _feel_ the hunger in Carol’s eyes as her lips parted, pulling Jessica into a kiss. Jessica usually enjoyed the aggressive abandon with which Carol approached foreplay--tongue caressing, fingertips sweeping over and then under fabric, a knee pivoted between legs, not forcing entry but seeking permission. Tonight, though, there was something urgent, almost insistent, and rough. Carol pressed harder into Jessica, up against the door.

Jessica gasped in a breath and said, “Slow down. We’ve got all the time in the multiverse.”

“Why isn’t it working?” Carol mumbled, and she ran a hand down Jessica’s stomach, fingers twitching almost spasmodically past the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. Jessica pushed back, and that’s when she felt it. 

The spreading coldness across her neck, her clavicle, her cheek and lips. A trail of icy sharpness down her stomach.

She pushed harder, forcing Carol away from her, and reached for the light switch.

“You’re not supposed to fight it,” Carol said, backing away, her breath a panting whisper. Jessica panicked, fumbling for the switch. Something was going horribly wrong and if she could just see--

The light flicked on, and her pupils dilated as she took in her lover in the soft glow of the living room. She wasn’t sure if her eyes dilated from the sudden light, or from fear. Probably both.

She glanced down and rubbed at her chest, at her hands. The same black dust they had been coated with earlier was _moving_ around on her. Shifting and struggling to find purchase, and yet finding none. Everywhere Carol’s lips had been, her fingers.

Carol was not so lucky. Jessica gasped. 

A dark purplish glow emanated from her, and her skin was mottled more black than pale. Confusion and frustration crossed her face and she scowled. 

“You’re supposed to be one of us now,” Carol hissed, only it didn’t sound like her voice. Not really. It was deeper, with a judgmental edge Jessica wasn’t used to hearing directed at her.

“What happened to--Oh God, Gerry!” She darted for the hallway, past Carol, but Carol threw an elbow to her side. Jessica’s senses betrayed her, and she just barely caught it before it could crack her ribs or worse. There was no compassion, no love, in that strike.

Whatever had happened to Carol, whatever the spider creatures had infected her with, Jessica seemed to be okay. And Carol could take a hit.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica said, charging up a Venom Blast. The green bioelectric energy rippled and waved from her blackened fingers before she let loose a torrent at the woman she loved. The mottled black on her skin evaporated as the bioelectric energy ripped through her, dissipating it.

She had only a moment to be relieved, as Carol rocketed through the balcony door, glass shattering and curtains fluttering to the street below. The Venom Blast shorted out the electricity as it hit the wall, and the lights flickered like some kind of carnival house of horrors. Carol didn’t even cast a glance back as she powered up, that dark purple glow enveloping her. She shot off to God knew where and left Jessica alone, unsure whether her dimming vision was due to the tears in her eyes or the flickering bulbs overhead.

She didn’t have time for any of that as she rushed to the bedroom, to Gerry. He was fast asleep, hadn’t heard any of the commotion. She checked her body over; no more dust, no more swirling, living blackness trying to take her over.

She was immune to its effects? And by extension, so too was Gerry.

She wrapped him in a blanket and eased him from the crib, taking him to her room while she grabbed her usual suit these days--the red, black, and gold motorcycle jacket with her logo emblazoned across the front. She didn’t trust the new suit, not if it had been in contact with whatever this was.

She settled her yellow lenses over her eyes, and activated the full facemask with all the neat Stark tech Carol had convinced him to give her over the years. With a sweep of her eyes in a complicated maneuver, she activated the emergency communication channel with the Avengers HQ. The real one at Avengers Mountain up at the North Pole, not the shell here in Manhattan. If Carol was any indication, Manhattan was compromised.

A female African accent popped into her ears. “Acknowledged emergency. J.D. , designation Spider-Woman Prime and--Ham-Sandwich-Woman? … What? Do you read me, Spider-Woman?”

The goofy nickname ripped a hole in Jessica’s heart. Of course Carol would set something like that up. “I read. Shuri? What are you doing at the Mountain?”

Black Panther’s baby sister and a tech mind to rival and surpass Tony Stark. She answered, “Upgrades to the central nervous system of the Progenitor while the team is blasting aliens in a galaxy far, far away. What’s happening in New York City? Communications are going dark all over the place.”

All over? Carol had been busy. She said, “Uh… Protocol…” Shit, what were the code words for this? “Look, there’s some kind of maybe mind control or body snatching thing going on down here. My son and I seem to be immune, but I think we’re the only ones.”

“Snatcher Protocol? I’m activating the locals since the rest of the Avengers aren’t around. Let’s see-- Oh, you’ve got Carol! Should be a breeze, yes?”

If only. “That’s the other Protocol,” she said. “What do you call it when Captain Marvel is the one infected and spreading it?”

Silence reached her as she finished getting her outfit on and grabbing the scramble packs for her and Gerry.

Finally Shuri said, “We call that Uh Oh Protocol, Ham Sandwich Woman.”

That felt just about right. Forget all the personal shit with Carol. If she was turned to the dark side, they were all in very, very big trouble.

She shoved it all away as she lifted Gerry into the protective carrier across her chest. It was maybe a little small for him now, but this was the only one with tactical armor plating throughout. She strapped Gerry in while she formulated a strategy.

She said, “I need a safehouse, preferably something unattached to SHIELD or the Avengers. Do Jess and Luke have anything?”

“Checking. It looks like Power Man and Jewel--”

“She doesn’t go by that. Just Jessica, or Jones.”

“Is that really the more important correction right now?”

“Hey, you’ve never gone twelve rounds and twelve shots with the woman. I can’t even get drunk, and she still drinks me under the table.”

Shuri ignored that. “As I was saying, they appear to have something set aside, but it’s unavailable.”

“What’s that mean?”

“They’re using it as an--enhanced interrogation site. I believe it is probably wise to leave it at that.”

That was right. Jessica filled in as a favor because nearly every sanctioned member of every team--dimensional, galactic, global, and bodega level--were busy. Out of dimension, off-world, underwater, fighting ninjas somewhere underground.

“Is there anyone at all available besides me here?”

Shuri clucked her tongue. “There’s one, but he’s flagged as incompatible for teamup with you.”

What the hell kind of system was that? “If he’s a good guy, put me in touch. I need all the help I can get.”

“Very well. Contacting Shang-Chi in Jersey and setting up a rendezvous. Suggest Sanctum Sanctorum to deposit the child for safekeeping.”

Shang-Chi? Incompatible. They’d been on opposite sides once upon a time, but they’d fought side by side more often. 

“The Sanctum sounds good, Shuri. Set it up and I’ll be there after meeting with Shang-Chi. In the meantime, scramble anyone else you can find who isn’t already in the city, and ping me their locations.”

“Acknowledged, Spider-Woman. Good luck.”

With Gerry dozing fitfully in his chest carrier, and an outfit Jessica thought she might be ready to leave behind, Jessica stared at the cityscape below. Somewhere out there, Carol was converting people to this new darkness. Somewhere out there, a collision waited.

Jessica wasn’t strong enough for it, but then, she almost never was. But she was still here. She could still fight. 

And she could still save the love of her life. Would save, if there was any justice in this fucking universe.

She leaped into the sky, gliding towards the ping on her visor, somewhere across the Hudson and into New Jersey. She did her best to ignore the ache in her chest. 

The sense of something amiss was all the harder to bear because she didn’t feel it fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the bit of steamy CarolJess in the mix tonight! Carol's not quite herself, but she's still in there. We can hope and pray, at least, right?


	3. Minds Alike, Minds Unlike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Drew and her son Gerry flee Manhattan in search of allies to rescue Carol Danvers, whose body or mind has been overtaken by a dark force calling itself the Spinnerets. In her more casual Spider-Woman costume, Jessica meets with Shang-Chi in Jersey to formulate a plan, if it is even possible.

Captain Marvel shed her bright light once she was out of sight of Jessica Drew. She and the child were a problem for later. No one was supposed to be able to resist the Spinnerets’ pull, and yet she had. There might yet be others. Where there was resistance, there was possibility of failure.

Carol reached the satellite office of the Avengers Headquarters here in Manhattan. Already the blackness had spread, coating the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Shifting, swirling darkness, the kind of black that rendered objects invisible against it.

Deep in the heart of the building, the cancer grew. Carol had expended the majority of her newfound essence attempting to infect the child, and then Jessica. She floated down into the training arena, where it flourished. She melded down into the pool of midnight, gathering her reserves, while a tiny voice tickled the back of her mind.

This new self wanted Jessica Drew, just as Carol Danvers wanted Jessica. It needed someone to share this glorious apotheothis of humanity, right before it was crushed and reshaped into something new.

She needed a companion. Someone to confide in. That foreign thought washed over her new mind and sent shivers down her spine, even as she soaked in the swirling darkness of the creatures. What they wanted was not what Carol wanted, she realized.

This Dark Marvel needed her Spinneret Queen.

*****

Jessica landed on the other side of the Hudson, in Jersey, and found the location Shuri had pinged Shang-Chi’s location. She found him at a late-night diner, in casual street clothes, eating a mountain of pancakes and sausage. She noted that he had gear in a duffel bag with him, though. No super was ever totally unprepared.

Jessica’s stomach burbled and she sat down across from him, removing her visor so as to blend in. She unhooked Gerry from his carrier and waved for serving staff while Shang-Chi offered the plate of sausage links.

“You sure?” Jessica asked even as she shoved one into her mouth. A late night server with the nametag Marty brought over a high-chair and flipped Jessica’s coffee cup over, filling it before she had even asked.

“She’ll have the same, Martina,” Shang-Chi said, indicating his pancakes and sausage. His accent was hardly noticeable beneath all the food shoved into his mouth, but it was there.

The server, a cute woman in her 40s, maybe, eyed the man, and Jessica shared a longsuffering look with her. Jessica said, “Normally I’d tell him to shove these pancakes somewhere uncomfortable for that, but he’s right. Tonight is a carb and protein kind of night.”

Martina laughed a little and said, “Sure thing, sweetie. And for the little one?” Jessica had just finished wiping down the high-chair and putting Gerry into it. A woman and her baby at a diner in the middle of the night didn’t throw Martina off her game at all.

“Fruit? He’s really into apples right now.”

“I’ll chunk one up and bring it out for the handsome little guy.”

After Marty left, Shang-Chi grunted and swallowed a big chunk of pancake. “It’s been a while, Spider-Woman.”

“Just because our paths started similarly doesn’t mean we had to stay on the same one.”

“That is true enough. Shuri gave me the quick rundown on what’s happening, but maybe you can fill in the missing details?”

Jessica did her best, over the course of their meal, to summarize it all. Shang-Chi went from worried to downright terrified, as well he should be. And when Jessica was done, she tore a giant strip off her pancake and rolled a sausage into it before eating it. It was greasy, delicious diner food and made Jessica feel something approaching normal.

That is, until she got to the part where Shang-Chi asked, “So what exactly are we supposed to do about it? Your girlfriend is--what do the mutants call it--Omega Level. And we’re, strictly speaking, not.”

“You have a profound ability for understatement, my friend.”

“Are the Avengers really off-world? Why isn’t Captain Marvel with them?”

Marty, the waitress, came back with more apples for Gerry, but the little guy had fallen asleep, slumped over in his high-chair, and Jessica scooted the apples in front of her. Marty said, butting into the conversation, “Oh I just love that Captain Marvel, you know? She and that sidekick of hers were on the news earlier, fighting some kinda spider somethings in Times Square.”

Jessica fought the instinct to correct her, but the details of the story were not important. Marty went on, “You know, you kinda look like that spider girl. And you’re wearing kinda the same thing she used to wear all the time.” Finally it clicked and Jessica wanted to hide under the table.

“Oh my God, is it actually you? You’re Captain Marvel’s sidekick?”

“Girlfriend, actually.”

Marty’s eyes widened. “Well that’s lovely, isn’t it? You get to work with someone you love.” Jessica couldn’t tell at first if the woman was genuine, but she smiled beatifically as she left the table again, humming to herself.

“Are you a regular here?” Jessica asked Shang-Chi, who had finally finished eating his dozenth pancake.

“I don’t live here, Jessica, but yes. Any time I’m in town, I stop by. Martina’s a sweet woman, and I can tell you’re wondering if she’s a bigot, but I can assure you she’s not.”

Jessica heaved a sigh of relief. It was bad enough that people had _strong opinions_ about superheroes already, but the queer ones got it worse. The TV news didn’t often report on Captain Marvel’s “sidekick”, and Jessica liked it that way. The blogs and counterculture online, though: they loved that the strongest woman in the universe was bi. Jessica didn’t really get it, when she would read about bi-erasure and the damage it caused, but she supported the ones who it was important to nonetheless. Love was love, however it came to people, and for however long. So long as they could consent, etc.

“We have bigger problems than that, tonight,” Jessica said, lifting Gerry from the high-chair and situating him back in the chest carrier. She stared at Shang-Chi, gathering up his own gear. “You’re paying for this, right?”

Martina--Marty--took the empty plates from in front of them. “On the house, dear. Any friend of Captain Marvel is a friend around here, doubly so for all those mean things they said about her in the news.” Those mean things were mostly about her surprise Kree heritage and 

Jessica was pleased to hear that, but she really didn’t have time to mess around. Shang-Chi left a $20 bill on the table as they gathered their belongings and went outside. He followed after saying goodbye to his friend the incorrigible waitstaff, and leaned against the brick wall just outside.

He said, “You never answered my question.”

“Which?”

“Why wasn’t Carol with the Avengers? She’s on the team right now, isn’t she?”

The simple answer was of course the more embarrassing one, so she settled for, “Just happenstance. Our schedules weren’t going to line up again for a while, and she decided to stay back. To hear her tell it, ‘Jen’s got this handled with one pinky, and if she needs two I’ll buy you a burger.’”

Shang-Chi nodded, and Jessica remembered that the two of them really didn’t have much in common these days. He asked, “And these creatures, they were fleeing before they swarmed, is that right?”

Jessica’s grip tightened slightly on Gerry, who cooed and mumbled slightly as he slept. “That’s exactly right. Holy shit, how did I miss that?” They were fleeing from Carol right up until they weren’t, and then they were after her like mice sniffing cheese. 

“In the moment it hardly seemed to matter, I suppose. They showed up out of nowhere, and the two of you were the only ones available. Though I’ll note that I wasn’t called. Neither was your girlfriend’s protégé, Kamala. She’s here, on this side of the river, you know.”

“I am aware of her location, yes. What are you trying to say to me right now?”

She was afraid she knew, but he confirmed it. “Perhaps the happenstance that led to Carol Danvers--uniquely difficult to defeat under any circumstances--being at the epicenter of this infection as you call it... “

“Not so happen,” Jessica finished for him, and he grimaced. “Relationship hazard. You date the woman, you get the puns.”

“So again I must ask, what exactly are we going to do about it? If you have a magic off-switch for your girlfriend, now is the time to use it.”

Gross. He apologized with his eyes, though. “I wasn’t sure if now was the time for jests.”

She yawned. It was late and they had a long day ahead of them, and with every minute they hesitated, Carol was probably spreading the darkness. “Sometimes a joke is just not funny. I have to get to the Sanctum Sanctorum to drop off Gerry. Can you coordinate with Shuri and whoever else she finds for our ragtag failure waiting to happen?”

“I will change and gather our allies, Spider-Woman. But first, did Shuri mention the compatibility list to you?”

“She did. It sounded like a bunch of algorithmic bullshit to me.”

“I have been thinking about it, and I do not think so.”

“Oh yeah? What’s so wrong with us that we shouldn’t work together? It’s definitely not our style, ‘cause we both can rock a skintight jumpsuit.”

He cocked a half-grin and waved that away. “It’s a question of origins. I was indoctrinated by my father into being an assassin. I killed believing I was doing good, only to find I was serving criminals and evil people. You did much the same for Hydra.”

“Hey, I was properly brainwashed, thank you very much.”

“Be that as it may, we both have a dark mark in our pasts. We both have been serving the wrong side when believing it was the right.”

There was a twisted kind of addict’s logic to it. Put two recovering addicts together into a tough situation, they’re more likely to relapse together than solo. 

Jessica scoffed, though. “The Avengers have a long memory and a short attention span. Doesn’t matter how many years we’ve been ‘the good guys’, someone somewhere is always worried we’ll see our old bosses and fall into old patterns.”

“I have made peace with it, but it sounds like you have not,” Shang-Chi said, and that pissed Jessica off even more.

“To hell with all of that. I’m going to get my kid somewhere safe, and we’ll show the Avengers that their compatibility list is as misguided as Tony Stark’s mustache.”

Shang-Chi cracked a smile and laughed this time. “A billionaire always has style, even when he doesn’t.”

Jessica offered her hand to this man, who shook it firmly. A man she felt some connection to, despite their relative unfamiliarity, all told. You didn’t get put through the crucible of brainwashing and betrayal and it not affect the way you view the world, after all.

“See you soon, Spider-Woman.” He jogged off to find an alley and it was minutes later that Jessica realized she hadn’t thought to ask him why he was in Jersey at all. His last known standings with any team were involved with the Atlantis conflict with Namor, so why was he in Jersey? 

She made a mental note to ask him before they met back up, and took a cab back into Midtown and the Sanctum Sanctorum. With any luck she’d stay off Carol’s radar and they could get a foothold within the city before the infection--or whatever it was--had spread too far.

If Jessica were immune to it, that might mean there was an antibody, or antidote. If one of the biologists were around, that would be a start.

She put her visor back on while crossing the bridge, and pinged Shuri. “Do you read? This is Spider-Woman.”

The cab driver turned his head sharply at her, swerved slightly and corrected. He said, “Sorry! I don’t get many of you riding around at this hour.” Shuri wasn’t answering just yet.

She said, “Some privacy, if you don’t mind.”

His eyes widened in the rearview. “Sure, sure. My kid thinks you’re great, by the way.”

Jessica smiled patronizingly. This was all too common. “You’re probably thinking of the other Spider-Woman. White suit, hood, jumps dimensions.”

But he shook his head. “Nah. She’s got the big yellow spider symbol and the glasses and everything. I didn’t know you brought the baby with you on missions, though. Seems dangerous, don’t it?” 

Jessica laughed. It was so rare to see anyone who recognized her, and it had happened twice tonight, and one because his daughter was a fan. “Special circumstance. Getting him somewhere safe.” She pinged Shuri again, but still nothing. Probably coordinating with whoever else she could find.

Jessica said, “If I’m the one your daughter likes, you’ve got trouble on your hands, don’t you?”

He grinned. “The only kid worth having is one that won’t take your shit, am I right?”

Jessica thought that was a wild thing for a parent to say, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. 

“Shuri here,” came from her comms, and Jessica held her hand up for silence.

Jessica said, “I hope you have some good news for me.”

“It’s not… bad news, but there’s room for improvement. Unfortunately, Captain Marvel is working fast. The entire city is at risk of compromise, and I can’t authorize anyone new entering the city until we know more about this infection.”

“Not even Shang-Chi?”

“He is cleared. The working theory, and we must go with this if you are to receive any help at all, is that if you are immune or adaptive to toxins and poisons, you can interact with this particular problem. If the other Spider people, or either of the Wolverines, or the Hulks, were available, I’d be pinging them, too. But they’re not and here we are.” 

Her life for a She-Hulk right now. “What about Stark’s robots?”

Shuri sighed. “None in the city. They’re all up here with me getting upgraded as well.”

“Jesus. I’m starting to think Shang-Chi was right.”

“He offered his theory that the timing of this is strange? I agree, for what it is worth. I’m running scans of any suspicious activity, but even up here I am limited. The neural network is only slightly functional because of what I’m doing.”

The cab driver interrupted. “Sorry, it sounds like you’re suggesting there’s some kind of trouble in the city. Should I be worried? You know, more worried than normal?”

Jessica nodded absently. “Probably. This could get very bad.”

“Shit.” He mumbled to himself as he drove towards Greenwich Village.

Shuri continued, “We’re seeing localized pockets of all superhero and police activity go dark all over Manhattan. I’m pinging local law enforcement all around Manhattan to close off the bridges and set up a water perimeter where possible. If Captain Marvel comes calling, there’s not much we can do about it.”

“You said it wasn’t bad, Shuri. What part of this isn’t bad?”

“Optimism is your friend, Spider-Woman. The Sanctum should have something to offer when you arrive. Just because Dr. Strange is out at the moment does not mean their support is withdrawn.”

“Finally something positive. When Shang-Chi gets onto the island, let me know. And if Carol pops up anywhere, definitely let me know.”

“You will be the first. Shuri out.”

They pulled up on a nondescript corner of a street that didn’t correspond with the Sanctum’s physical location, and Jessica realized she didn’t have cash and didn’t want to pay with a card, lest Carol somehow track that.

But she couldn’t leave this nice cab driver in the lurch. She’d have to risk it. She paid with a credit card and left a nice big tip before saying, “Give your daughter this.” She handed over a small patch of the yellow spider, pulled out of Gerry’s bag. “Manhattan is not going to be friendly for very long, so get out if you can.”

“Roger that, Spider-Woman. Thanks.”

Jessica closed the cab door and breathed in the night air. Before too long, sunrise would be coming, and whatever Carol had been doing the last hour would probably be in sharp relief against the morning sun. Hopefully they had a solution by then.

She started walking the complicated pattern that would take her to the Sanctum, hidden from eyes that did not know how to look. She only hoped she remembered how it went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excitement next time as Shang-Chi gathers one more ally; Captain Marvel clashes with friends; and Spider-Woman fights for her heart in the Sanctum Sanctorum!


	4. Allies and Enemies, Friends and Foes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shang-Chi works to recruit an unexpected ally; Captain Marvel does some recruiting of her own; Spider-Woman fights for her heart in the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Shang-Chi listened to Shuri on comms. He was doubtful of this being anything remotely resembling a good idea, but the longer this went on, the fewer options they would have. Why not a stick of dynamite in the darkness?

“Acknowledged, Shuri. I’m outside the last known location of Felicia Hardy.” If only he were here for her. Upstate New York was scenic, idyllic by day. By night it was less so. According to Spider-Woman and Shuri’s intel, the creatures could spread via touch, a creeping darkness that was hard to see at night. So when he jumped a little at a shifting shadow in the moonlight, he felt only a little foolish. The early morning squirrel darted up a tree as he crossed the back lawn of a palatial estate. 

Black Cat had put her ill-gotten wealth to work for her. It had taken some doing to bypass the security, but now Shang-Chi stood on the back patio area, wondering which window would lead to his target.

He chose the one that had a large crack in it, taped over. No way would Felicia let that stand. Therefore that window would lead to someone else.

He vaulted up the wall, using trellis and eave to reach the second story window as silently as a leopard after its prey. He expected he might need to break the window, but it slid open with just a hint of squeaking. He waited, but she hadn’t heard anything. There was no alarm sound, either, but then, why would an infamous thief trust a system she could bypass? 

He slipped into the room and immediately regretted it.

A hand appeared in the darkness of the room, lit only by the light of the flame that lived in its palm. Shang-Chi ducked as a jet of fire roared out of the window, curling the paint of the interior. 

“I come in peace, Typhoid Mary!”

Levitated blades shot across the space, and Shang-Chi rolled to the side to avoid them as they embedded in the wall and floor. She said in a sing-song voice that sent chills down his spine, “Typhoid isn’t in right now. You’ve reached Bloody Mary, and she is very hungry.”

He cursed under his breath. Of course he’d end up with the worst possible alter when he snuck in. He danced around the room, avoiding flames and daggers, until suddenly his own mind was assaulted. He felt drowsy, lethargic. Mary had a vast arsenal of abilities, and all of them were ramped up while in her Bloody Mary state. He fought the sensation, closing his mind off to telepathy, narrowly missing a sword to the throat. He turned back to her, to plea for another alter, but when he did, she cocked the hammer back on an old-fashioned revolver pointed at his chest. He was fast, but not that fast.

Instead he whipped out one of his nunchaku and deflected the bullet into the wall. He had only one chance to subdue this woman and hopefully bring out an alter that was less destructive and chaotic, and he hated the method to bring it about.

But he concentrated on his body, focusing his inner energies while Bloody Mary retrained the gun, the floating blades, the orb of fire floating around her. 

In the split second of reaction time he had, Shang-Chi duplicated his body, sending out half a dozen forms that were him in almost every way.

And every one of them exploded in fire, or dropped dead from a bullet wound, or something else heinous in this charnel house of doom.

But it gave the real Shang-Chi the moment he needed. He weaved in through the falling bodies, using them as cover, until he reached the woman standing at the center of a vortex of fire and steel. He clocked her on the back of the head with his nunchaku, and caught her as she fell forward, gun dropping. If Felicia or any security detail were on the premises, surely they’d have come running by now.

But Bloody Mary’s eyes roll up in the back of her head, and the fire fades, and the floating blades  _ chunk _ into the hardwood floor, creating a ring around her.

Shang-Chi hated that this was necessary, but there wasn’t time to wait for her to change naturally. If he were going to get her help, it had to be now. Shuri was already talking about increased Spinneret activity in Hell’s Kitchen, which could only be bad news. He needed to finish this and connect with Jessica Drew back in the city.

“What’s going on?” the woman said, her voice slurred slightly, as Shang-Chi lowered her to the ground.

“You’ve had a traumatic injury to the head. Am I talking to regular Mary, or maybe Walker?” Walker would be good. Mutant Zero might be preferable. Honestly anyone but Bloody Mary again.

Flames flickered in her hands before dying away and they fell into darkness once more.

Shang-Chi left her on the ground and found a light switch, brightening the room. It was sparsely furnished, with more knife holes in the walls than Shang-Chi thought could exist. Scrawls of loopy, messy paint splattered everywhere. This was her sanctuary, and it was the sanctuary of a fractured mind.

“Mary. I’m just Mary.” Her voice was shy, timid. She held the back of her head and stared at the daggers embedded in the wall, the floor around her in a circle, the sword stuck through a bedpost. “Why were we fighting in my room? Are you here to hurt me?” She crabwalked away from him, past the daggers where she cut herself on the leg against one. She ended up next to the open window, where she cradled her cut, gushing blood.

Shang-Chi said, “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Shang-Chi, and we have rarely been on the same side, but there is a great darkness spreading across New York City. We need your help.”

“We? Who sent you?” Shang-Chi reached down to Mary’s leg and inspected the cut. Deep but she’d heal. He wrapped the wound and focused his chi into her closest pressure point. The agony in her eyes faded and she sucked in a great sigh of relief.

“The Avengers sent me, sort of. Mostly it’s just Spider-Woman and myself.”

“Spider-Woman? Isn’t she a Skrull?”

“Not for a long time, Mary. We need one of your alters in the coming conflict, or the whole world may fall into mind-controlled darkness.”

Mary’s eyes widened in fear, but then they rolled briefly back into her head and a sharper gaze stared back. 

She said, “You must be desperate if you needed one of us.”

“Are you Walker now?”

Mary nodded. “Tell me everything.”

*****

The bunker where Luke Cage in his iconic yellow shirt and the rest of the Defenders had isolated the new local gang leader, and were pressing him for information, was not a lavish or polite affair. They didn’t torture, so to speak, but neither were they following the letter of the law. Luke knew that this pained everyone as much as it did him, but they were running out of time and options. Well, maybe not his wife. She was always a bit more cavalier about enhanced interrogation.

So when the alert pinged them all at once--except for Jessica, whose phone was once again broken and worthless in her leather jacket pocket, in some avoidable brawl or other--they couldn’t really do anything but stay hunkered down.

Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, Danny Rand, Jessica Jones, and Luke himself stared at the message. Matt Murdock’s phone read the message aloud. “Protocol Uh Oh Engaged.” 

Misty, her afro impeccable as usual, rolled her bionic shoulder. “Is this a joke?”

Jessica glanced at Luke’s phone, then at Luke, and grimaced. “I’m hazy on the protocols, but uh… pretty sure this is very bad.”

Colleen, who had been in the process of taking her white jacket off and sharpening her sword in front of the gang leader, looked to Matt. “Isn’t this when someone’s compromised?”

Matt Murdock, or Daredevil, moved the gang leader trussed to the chair from the center of the room. He adjusted his crimson suit and said, “I can hear the early morning outside. Something’s taking over New York, and Captain Marvel is at the center of it.”

Danny, or Iron Fist, pulled his gloves back on and straightened his yellow mask “As in she’s corrupted or betrayed us? It wasn’t that long ago that we found out she’s half-Kree. Maybe the Kree half took some time to manifest its true colors?”

Jessica pulled her scarf off and cracked her knuckles. “I’ll thank you not to suggest my friend would ever willingly betray us.”

“Willing or not,” Luke said, “if she’s turned and taking over the city, what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Wait.” Matt’s head cocked as he listened to sounds only he could hear. Vibrations that only existed for him. “Jones.”

“What?”

“Did you happen to tell Carol we were going to be here?”

She shrugged. “We keep each other up to date.”

Daredevil grimaced. “Get clear!”

A boom sounded from the center of the room above them. Dust and debris crashed to the concrete basement, sending everyone jumping to safety or being thrown. Luke tried to grab Jessica, but her hand slipped free of his and she disappeared under the rubble.

He screamed for her, choking on dust and clamoring for the pile, but on top of it all, radiating a dark purple energy the likes of which Luke had never seen, was a Captain Marvel wreathed in swirling black. It was almost like a negative of her normal outfit, pulsating darkness as a living, writhing tentacle.

She pointed a hand at Luke, lazily firing a blast of the dark purple energy into him, shoving him back and breaking the wall behind him as he collapsed to the ground. He was unbreakable, but Sweet Christmas, did that sting!

But nothing mattered in the moment except getting to Jessica. Finding his wife.

Everyone else was slow to recover. Misty’s bionic arm hung limp from her side. Danny’s mask was askew and he was bleeding from the nose. Murdock was freeing the gang leader, who was yelling obscenities and freaking out. Colleen held a bleeding side from a piece of rebar that had sideswiped her.

“Carol!” Misty yelled, while Luke found an arm sticking out from the debris. He dug, heedless of what Captain Marvel might do to him. Had to find Jessica. 

The woman turned to regard Misty. Carol said, speaking in many voices, her own tone lost in the mix, “I’ve been looking for some lieutenants. My first choice, sadly, resisted.”

Luke yanked at a piece of ceiling, pulling it free and revealing a still-breathing Jessica Jones. Injured, surely. Bleeding. But blessedly alive.

Misty continued, buying Luke time, “When’s the last time you lost a fight? Truly lost?” Guns, swords, fists. All manner of weapon flew at Carol Danvers. They were rebuffed as though swatting flies. The swirling blackness, like a corrupted version of her sash, whipped about, acting as a living shield. Tendrils of blackness shot out, enveloped Luke’s friends. One by one they choked on the darkness.

Luke pulled Jessica to safety, then joined the fight. He managed to leap and drive a double fist into Carol’s back, just between the shoulder blades, and the woman had the decency to drop a few inches from her hover, grunting.

She whipsawed her hand back and a tendril spun out, like a spider’s web. Spiders. What had happened to Jessica Drew, if Carol was like this? He had no more time to think about any of this, as he screamed for his wife to run, to get their daughter and flee, but no sound came from his lips. The tendrils choked him. The tendrils became him. He became something else.

Carol allowed the darkness of her Spinnerets to work their magic on the Defenders. The protectors of Hell’s Kitchen. Her new Hell’s Knights.

The last of them, refusing to leave, was her other Jessica. The one she didn’t love like the first. “Jones,” Carol said, landing a few feet from the woman. The gang leader was praying in the corner, and Carol held a hand out to him, crushing it into a fist, which snapped his neck from twenty feet away. 

Jones’ eyes bulged as she tried to stand. “What happened to you, Danvers? You’re the most stubborn bitch I know. Next to me and maybe that girlfriend of yours.”

Carol grinned. Yes. Stubborn. Hard to root out. “You’ll see what it’s like when you join the others. We have great works to perform this day. The endless night is upon us.”

Jones shrugged noncommittally. “Why don’t you let us go, huh? We’re not really the ‘betray our friends and destroy the world’ types.”

Carol repeated, “You’ll see. When you accept the Spinnerets, the burden of choice will be gone.”

That got a reaction out of the woman. She scoffed. “If you’re about to put me under some kind of mind control, I am here to tell you right now to fuck right off with that. I’ll kill myself first.”

And something tweaked in Carol’s chest. A hitch of shame. Some acknowledgement of this woman’s burden? The control of the Spinneret weakened and she held purple energy palms to her eyes. 

Carol’s voice, her own, came out now. “Run, Jessica! I’m sorry! I can’t hold it back.”

“I’m not leaving you here! Or Luke, or anyone!” Jessica stepped closer, but Carol grabbed her by the lapels on her leather jacket, yanking her upwards, through the collapsed roof, up into the ruined warehouse, beyond into the early morning sky. Only the sun was blanketed now. Darkness was here to stay. Carol had done that. She could already feel the tendrils reasserting their control. Weaving their web back around her. 

“Seek sanctuary!” Carol yelled, throwing Jessica Jones through the air. The woman screamed as she was tossed, but she tumbled and rolled across the rooftop, and Carol forced herself to go back into the building before control was completely lost.

Her army had grown with these five. Jessica Jones was unimportant compared to that. A weakness of the human spirit that would be consumed in ash and darkness soon enough.

She raised her Hell’s Knights, wreathing them in the same swirling blackness, that same skittering dark that shifted all over. And tasked them with finding her queen. Her Jessica Drew.

*****

Jessica Drew stumbled into the Sanctum Sanctorum almost by accident. She had been walking the complicated path to get to the front entrance, but every time she thought she was on the verge of doing it correctly, she got distracted by Gerry wanting attention, or an early morning jogger that she had to be sure wasn’t corrupted like Carol. When she locked eyes on the path once more, she found herself back in front of a donut shop again.

After the sky began to lighten, she got frustrated, decided to re-up her caffeine, and went into the donut shop. The moment she crossed the threshold, her vision swam and she stood in the front hall of the Sanctum Sanctorum, the ding of the donut shop door’s bell fading as a solid wooden door closed in its place.

Gerry’s eyes widened along with hers, and she let loose a huge sigh of relief.

Only the Sanctum was dark, empty. No torches, no lamps, the fire was not burning pleasantly like she had been assured it always would.

“Hello?” she called, wondering if maybe this place was already compromised.

No one answered, and she called again. Her own voice echoed back from the vast space, and she stared around.

“You’re quite persistent,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. Jessica’s peripheral vision showed her nothing there, and she did a double take when a woman was standing at the top of the staircase upon turning her head.

The woman was a bit mousy, wearing a knit beanie over lank black hair. Her hazel eyes were magnified by large, thick glasses perched low on her biggish nose. She had something of a beatnik or goth look to her, the kind of fashion Jessica might have worn as a disaffected teen. Had she lived a normal enough life to remember her teen years. The woman had arms crossed in front of her, wearing a thick sweater with some kind of weird image on it: a dragon made of books?

Jessica said, “Persistence is my super power, if you believe some people.”

The woman made a complicated hand gesture, something Jessica had seen Dr. Strange do before, and Jessica prepared herself to launch away to safety just in case.

The woman stared through steepled fingers at Jessica and Gerry, her eyes narrowed. After a moment, she lowered her hands and grinned. “Your super power is snark. Shuri said you were coming by. You know we’re not a daycare.”

“You know I’m not in the habit of leaving my son with strange women I haven’t met yet.”

“Oh! I’m Zelma Stanton. I keep the Sanctum from eating itself while the Sorcerer Supreme is away. Or sleeping. Or reading a particularly trashy romance novel.”

Jessica stifled a smile and the urge to poke fun at Dr. Strange. 

“Eating itself? Is--is that a thing this place can do?”

“Metaphorically, yes. Literally--probably also yes. I hear we’ve got the most powerful woman on the planet as an enemy suddenly.”

Jessica’s shoulders slumped and she unstrapped Gerry from his carrier. He desperately wanted to touch everything in sight, and Jessica made a mental note not to let him get near anything as she held him in one arm propped against her hip. Even a cup in this place might suddenly teleport you to China. Or some kind of negaverse. Or some impossible 2D dimension. Jessica didn’t know and didn’t want her son to find out. Why had she thought this place was good for a toddler?

Jessica changed the topic, not ready to talk about that just yet. “Where’s Wong? I thought he did the housekeeping and whatnot while Stephen was away saving galaxies.”

Zelma’s eyes shaded. Something had happened, but it wasn’t Jessica’s place to pry. Zelma said, “He had a disagreement with the doctor and took his leave.”

“Must have been a hell of an argument.”

“You could say that. Either way, he’s not here and I’m apprenticing. You avoided the question a minute ago.”

“Caught that, did you? Is there somewhere I can put this kid down where he can’t eat a magic jelly bean and grow wings? Or teethe on a magic wand and cast avada kedavra on himself?”

“It’s a sanctum, Spider-Woman. We can ward him. I learned how last week.” Zelma started walking down the stairs, fingers twitching and casting something.

Jessica turned her son away from the woman. “Whoa, now, no one’s casting anything on my boy when they’ve only known it a week. How about something mundane, like a playpen?”

Zelma’s arms dropped, her face scrunched up in frustration. “It’s perfectly safe. Theoretically. Okay, maybe not the best idea to go casting magic on a toddler.” Zelma shrugged and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “Come on. We’ll take him to a guest room. They come pre-warded.”

That sounded better. Something Stephen--or even more preferable, another monk predating him--had cast. More than this upstart young witch Jessica didn’t know.

“Can Carol get in here?” Jessica asked finally, as they settled Gerry into a makeshift playpen and Jessica sat on the bed in the guest room. The sudden reminder of sleep made Jessica yawn, and realize that she had only gotten a couple hours before this nightmare began.

“I made some hasty modifications to the wards around the building,” Zelma admitted. “I’m pretty sure I did it right.”

Pretty sure. Jessica chuckled ruefully. “We’re all way out of our depth on this one, aren’t we?”

“Way, way,” Zelma agreed. “But hey, bright side, the sun is coming out and we’ll figure out how to fight this thing without fighting your girlfriend.”

Jessica wasn’t so sure about that, but it was a nice thought. “Speaking of the sun, let’s get some light in here, if that’s a thing this building can do.”

It was past sunrise by now, and Zelma went to a window covered in thick velvet drapes. Only when she pulled them back, the room didn’t get any brighter. The outside world was gray. Like an overcast day, if the clouds were made of charcoal.

Zelma stares at it for a moment, then shrugs. “How messed up is it that this barely registers on the weird meter?”

Jessica joined the woman at the window, reluctant to leave the bed and its inviting softness. She said, “I’d say you get used to it, but you’re kind of taking it better than I am.” She had been looking forward to dawn. To light. To getting help and having a moment to breathe and get her feet back under her. But whatever the creatures were doing to Carol, they were also doing to the city at large. 

Zelma patted Jessica’s shoulder in an awkward gesture of comfort, and Jessica resisted the urge to cringe away. Better not to antagonize the only help she was likely to receive.

Zelma said, “You don’t get a colony of mind maggots living inside you without also gaining a bit of perspective.”

Indeed. What the hell were mind maggots? She decided she didn’t want to know. “How much did Shuri tell you?” Zelma went to sit on the bed with Gerry; despite her insistence that this was not a daycare, she took to him and he to her rather quickly. He reached arms up to her and she lifted him into her lap. 

She said, “Not much, honestly. Shang-Chi is out recruiting, you’re getting Gerry here for safety. Carol Danvers is shutting down all lines of communication. Whatever’s happened to her, the range of this Spinnerets’ influence is limited, but it is spreading slowly. Feeding off Carol’s powers.”

That sounded ominous. Jessica stared out the window again, at the darkness in the sky when it should have been light. What could they do? What could they possibly do?

“Apparently Gerry and I are immune to their power,” Jessica said. She quickly recounted what happened, in vague details, and Zelma nodded along. “Shang-Chi should be as well, according to Shuri. Have you heard who else he’s supposed to be bringing along?”

Zelma shook her head, making baby noises at Gerry, who giggled and smudged Zelma’s glasses. “I know Manhattan is being quarantined, but it’s not likely to be effective given how quickly Carol can spread this to others.”

Jessica grimaced. “You’re good with him. He’s picky, normally.” He babbled incoherently for a moment, then reached chubby little arms up to her and said “mama up”. Jessica picked her son up and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s hard being a mom when the world is constantly on fire.”

“You’re doing great, for what it’s worth.”

Jessica let herself show a tiny smile. Her whole body cried out for rest. But single motherhood had prepared her for this. Not sleeping for days while tending to a sick infant prepared her for a lot.

Back to business. “So aside from the start of a children’s book called Gerry’s Magical Mayhem, what does a sorcerer’s apprentice have that might help?”

“You said you were immune to it? It might help if you could get me a sample I could run tests on.”

“Unfortunately, it all died or evaporated when I used my Venom Blast on it.”

“Huh,” Zelma said. “Maybe not all of it.”

Jessica turned sharply to the woman, who was inspecting her fingers. On the tips of those fingers was the swirling blackness. “This came off Gerry.”

Jessica quickly inspected Gerry, as she had hours ago, but didn’t find anything once again. “You need to get it off your skin!” Jessica said, her fist sparking green with a charging Venom Blast.

But Zelma held up a hand to forestall her. “It’s… inert, I think? It’s not doing anything.”

Jessica didn’t want to take the chance. But how did it come from Gerry when she couldn’t find it on him? She ruffled his hair, searching his scalp. When she pulled her gloved hand away, the swirling blackness appeared once it left Gerry’s radius. It shook, vibrated, swirled, and then lay in a thin coat on her gloves.

“It’s all over him,” Zelma said. She held the blackness in a small containment sphere made of force. “He’s not just immune, Jessica. He nullifies it.”

Nullify. Jessica was immune, Gerry was a counter-agent. What could they do with that?

“We need to take his blood, or something, don’t we?”

Zelma nodded. “A full workup would be good, but I’m sure you’re not going to want a librarian performing a bone marrow biopsy on your son.”

“You’d be very right about that. Let’s get what we can without poking or prodding him, and see where that gets us?”

“Sounds good. I’ll get the kit. Here, uh, cup your hand like this.” She demonstrated, and Jessica formed a rough cup with her palm, into which Zelma unceremoniously dropped the ball of force holding the Spinneret particles. It settled with a slight electric feeling, but didn’t touch her glove. Gerry reached for it and Jessica held it away from him.

“Better not to take this with me, since I’m probably not immune.” Zelma departed, and Jessica considered the last few hours. She held a hostile entity, the thing that was currently attempting to steal her girlfriend and corrupt the rest of the world. In the other, her son, the light of her life, Gerry, babbled happily while attempting to reach for the slightly glowing containment sphere.

She was immune. Gerry was like a base dipped in acid; neutralizer?

It wasn’t worth her son’s safety to test it. There would be another way. There was always another way.

Until, sometimes, there just wasn’t.

Zelma came back with a collection kit. “You know how to do these things?”

Jessica scoffed, chuckling. “You really must be new.”

“Did I say something funny?”

“Let’s just say I know my way around a test kit. I’ve been a patient more than I care to, or can, remember.” 

“Yeah, but have you had bugs inside your brain?” Zelma challenged her.

“In a manner of speaking. I  _ am  _ Spider-Woman.” Jessica exchanged the sphere for the sample collection kit, and put Gerry back on the bed.

“Fair enough.”

Jessica cooed and coaxed her son while collecting samples. Tiny snip of hair, swab the inside of his cheek. As they came away from him, each piece of the kit also contained the inert Spinneret particles. Jessica said, “My parents were scientists, too.”

“Lucky.”

“Not when you end up the text subject.”

“Oh. You’re baiting me into this, aren’t you?”

“If I were, we’d be here all day. When you’ve lived through as many bullshit things as I have, you tend to have a story to beat anything anyone else can say.” Maybe except Nat, or Jones, she thought. They’ve had their fair share.

She bagged the samples and rubbed a low level Venom Blast over Gerry’s head and body. No worse than a simple static shock from crawling across the carpet. If the things were still on him, they’d definitely be dead now. Or whatever passed for dead to these creatures.

He giggled and gasped at that, and then touched Jessica’s arm, making a tiny  _ zap _ sound. Jessica pretended to get a tiny shock and he roared with laughter.

“Here.” She handed the samples over, and stood up. “I don’t suppose you’ve got some kind of magic weapon I can borrow? A mewmew hammer or a sword made of lightning?”

“We’re a little short on god-killers at the moment.” Zelma reached into her hoodie pocket and withdrew a silver amulet, though. “This is something, though.”

“And what’s that do?” She accepted it from Zelma and inspected it. A fine silver chain that almost looked like garroting wire, and a vague silvery lump the shape of a human heart. Not the cutesy one, but a real, anatomical heart, with fine etchings for muscle fiber. While she held it, the silver heart seemed to almost pulse in her palm.

“It helps you understand the fight ahead of you. I haven’t actually tested it, but that’s the sign on the placard.”

“You’re handing me magical artifacts that you don’t actually know the function of.”

“This is a do or die situation,” Zelma said. “Shrug.”

Jessica grinned. She must drive Strange completely bonkers. Good. The man got too complacent when he wasn’t challenged, or so Carol had said.

“So do I just put it on and wish upon a star?” Jessica asked. 

“I think you concentrate and it shows you how to proceed.”

“And it’s… safe?”

“Safe-ish. It wasn’t in the locked cabinet that Strange forbid me from trying to open.”

“And that cabinet was called what?”

“You Will Wish These Only Decapitated You.”

“Lovely. And the cabinet you pulled this from?”

“Don’t Touch, Stanton.”

Jessica held it at arm’s length. “That seems like a pretty specific cabinet.”

“I’m a pretty specific person.”

Was it worth putting on an unknown magical item and hoping for the best? She looked at it, then at Gerry. Maybe it would show her how to beat this. Maybe it would show her how to get Carol back.

“Look, I’m gonna put this on, but if it turns my heart to ash or something, I’m going to haunt you.”

“We have wards for that.”

“You know another word for ‘persistent’, Zelma?”

“Stubborn.”

Jessica grinned. “That’s right. I’d be a mule of a ghost. You get Gerry out of the city if this goes wrong. Off the planet if you can.”

“Aye aye, Spider-Babe.”

“Hey. No one gets to call me that.” She slipped the necklace over her head and settled it about her neck, pulling her hair up and freeing a strand that got caught in the chain.

“So I just… concentrate?” she asked, staring down at it. Already she could feel its gentle pulse matching her heartbeat. It sped up when her adrenaline spiked, then slowed when she calmed. 

“Zelma?” She looked up. Zelma was gone. Gerry was gone. The room was empty except for her. And, she realized, it wasn’t the same room. She was in her bedroom in the flat in San Francisco. And she was wearing her shorts and tee that she slept in years ago.

Except the necklace was around her neck.

It was already doing its thing. 

Her front door opened and shut. She rushed to the door of her bedroom and thrust it open, expecting to find a Dark Carol strolling down the hall.

Except it wasn’t Carol. It was Lindsay McCabe in all her platinum blonde, larger-than-life glory.

“Babe, I wasn’t expecting you!” Lindsay said, leaning in to peck Jess on the lips. A familiar kiss. A lover’s kiss. Jess blushed. They had never been intimate, though Jessica had thought about it.

“What are you doing home? I thought you were pulling a late night watching some scumbag or other.”

“I--what?” The necklace pulsed with her heartbeat, loud, so loud.

“Well, doesn’t matter. Let me get changed, I have so much to tell you.”

She hadn’t seen Lindsay in a couple of years. They fell out of touch, as friends do sometimes. Except this wasn’t here, and now. This was--what was this?

Jessica investigated her living room, finding it much as she remembered it when she had last lived here. When she had saved Carol’s life. When she had done so many things. Was this showing her a potential life? A life she wouldn’t get to live? How was this helpful to now?

She sat down on the couch, grabbing a pillow to clutch. Soon enough, Lindsay came back out, in her yoga leggings and baggy shirt she liked to lounge around the apartment in.

She bounded happily to the couch next to Jessica, only it wasn’t Lindsay when she landed, but Logan. Wolverine? The necklace pulsed again. Faster. Matching her heart. Louder again.

“Hey, babe. You catch that guy you were after? What’d you call him, the Taskmaster?”

“Um…” Jessica had  _ never  _ been with Wolverine. He popped a beer can open with a single extended adamantium claw and took a big swig.

Taskmaster. That name certainly meant something. The jerk.

She leaned away from Logan when he leaned in for a scruffy-faced kiss, and fell off the couch avoiding him. 

When she looked up, it was Carol. But a younger Carol. In her old Ms. Marvel leotard with the generous amount of skin showing. She reached a hand out to Jessica to help her up. The necklace pulsed again. So loud. Deafening.

She said, “Neither of us is the clumsy one.” Jessica took her hand, easily pulled from the ground. When she hit the couch, she was wearing her original costume. Bright red and yellow. They were covered in sweat and soot, sharing a bottle of wine after a hard fight. 

She remembered this night. This was  _ the night _ . The night they had broken that barrier. The night Jessica was ashamed of for months, because she had been afraid her pheromones did it. That Carol wasn’t acting on her own.

After she “died”. Before the Skrull invasion. 

“Jess?” Carol asked. She remembered that plaintive tone. That nervous tic. So unusual for the strongest woman Jessica had ever met.

Jessica leaned in to her. This wasn’t real. It was some kind of living memory. She could enjoy it.

“I know what you want to say,” Jessica said, taking Carol’s wine glass. This conversation had gone very differently when it happened originally. Carol took the initiative and Jessica gave in to desires she hadn’t realized she had.

Now Jessica took the lead. “You want to admit that you were distracted tonight.”

“I was.”

“By me.”

“By you.”

Jessica set the wine glasses down and lifted a leg over Carol’s lap, straddling her. Carol put her hands up in a surprised, warding gesture, but Jessica leaned down, pulling Carol’s eyemask off, lifting the mask from her own face. She hadn’t worn the original costume in years, and yet the feel of it peeling loose from hot skin, damp skin, was so familiar.

“Jess, are you sure--”

Jessica kissed her, pressing her hands into the couch cushion behind her to leverage herself back, until Carol leaned forward lest their contact break. Jessica wrapped arms around her and breathed deep, enjoying the sensation of her lips. That first tentative, questing kiss. It hadn’t happened like this, but it kind of did. 

She knew now some things she didn’t know then. How to control her pheromones. How to mix the fear and the pleasure and enhance the sensations. She pulled at Carol’s suit, getting a hand inside the shoulder and caressing a hand down her back, while Carol’s hands held Jessica firmly in place at the lower back, gripping tightly, almost painfully. But it was a good pain. A needful pressure. Neither was going to let the other go, and that was just the way it should be.

Carol came up for air, gasping, her hot breath on Jessica’s lips. “This is--”

“It’s everything.” Every moment, every word. She knew it beat for beat, had replayed it in her head a thousand times. A thousand times a thousand. And now she gave Carol what Carol had given her.

And the necklace pulsed. It grew so loud and fast that Jessica couldn’t concentrate on anything else. And it wasn’t Carol under her anymore, but Dark Carol.

“My Spinneret queen,” Carol whispered, pulling her in close. So strong. Jessica couldn’t resist. The shadows slipped inside her nose, her mouse, enclosed her body. She couldn’t breathe, didn’t want to. She was supposed to be immune!

The shadows swirled around her and Carol, lifting them up so that they floated in the center of a tornado of black and purple energy. Carol laughed, holding Jessica’s face to hers as the thick, black ichor drained into Jessica’s body. Merged with her. Became one with the spider inside.

Carol whispered in her ear, “We’ll topple the heavens and turn the skies to ash for our children.” Jessica was so mad, her skin pulsed with bioelectric energy, and she exploded with the green energy. Every fiber of her being vibrated with it; Carol recoiled and took her shadows with her.

And Jessica was left alone, swirling in a sea of blackness. Her Venom Blast energy radiated out of her, sapping every last bit of her strength, until there was nothing left to run her body. No electrical impulses to fire along her nervous system. Her body hung limp in the void.

The green energy reversed direction. It crackled along her skin, permeating her pores. Filling her. Charging her. Her muscles strained as she was held in electric bondage. 

Every cell in her body supercharged with ambient energy, and she wondered if this was how Carol felt all the time. Just soaking up energy whenever she needed it, and even when she didn’t.

And as the vibrant green electricity roared into her, her body curled into a fetal position, until she was Jessica Drew no more. She was something else. A beacon in the darkness. A ray of light in the hopeless sea of nothing.

She gasped and opened her eyes. She was on the floor in the guest room of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Jessica Jones, Shang-Chi, Zelma Stanton, and Typhoid Fucking Mary all stood over her, watching, waiting.

Jones held Gerry, who was happy to see his annjayjo, as he called her.

“Is this the team?” Jessica croaked.

“It will have to be,” Shang-Chi said. “Jones says we’re about to have company, of the Defenders variety.”

“Did you adapt the wards, Zelma?”

Zelma shrugged. “For five people who have explicit permission to enter? Fat chance. It took everything I knew how to do just to block out Carol Danvers, and even then I’m not sure it’ll work.”

In answer, the door to the Sanctum ripped free of its hinges and flung across the entrance hall, crashing into the banister of the staircase it sounded like.

“We’re here for the Spider-Woman and the boy. The rest of you will see the darkness. You will join the night.” That was Luke Cage. Jessica Jones’ eyes glassed over with unshed tears, and if there was anything in this universe more unjust, it was seeing this woman cry for her husband.

“Fuck that,” Spider-Woman said. She leapt to her feet with balletic grace, feeling her energy renewed. The silver necklace pulsed with her heart’s beat. She wasn’t entirely sure what the vision had meant, but she had something to prove. Dark Carol might want to show them the darkness, but Jessica Drew wasn’t ready to let go just yet. 

She grinned, a cocky sort of grin normally reserved for someone who didn’t know who they were messing with. 

“All right, team. Let’s show them the light instead.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this chapter posted! It was a big'n as you can see. This marks somewhat the halfway point of this story, so another four or five chapters ought to close it out! We'll see just how dark it gets, won't we?


	5. Rumble In The Sanctum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider-Woman, with her motley team--Shang-Chi, Typhoid Mary, Jessica Jones, and Zelma Stanton--face off against the corrupted, mind-controlled Defenders--Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, Daredevil, and Iron FIst.

Zelma warded the door to Gerry’s room using a complicated series of hand gestures. They were not quite as skilled as Spider-Woman had seen from Stephen Strange or Wong, but the yellow glowing lines appeared over the door as a lattice of runes, and for now, she had to trust this apprentice sorcerer.

The five of them adjusted their outfits and weapons, those that had any, and walked down the hall that would take them back to the foyer, where Luke Cage yelled about the darkness. Spider-Woman listened to the sounds of skittering, pulsing tendrils as they walked, and it sent shivers down her spine. Jessica Jones pulled on her finger gloves, pounding the palms of each fist in turn. Her eyes were determined, hard. And she drained her flask in one go, then wiped her lips.

When Spider-Woman stared at her with a “what are you doing?” glare, Jones shrugged. “Has Carol dropped a building on you today?” she asked, and Jessica said, “Actually--”

“You know what? Nevermind.”

“What’s the plan, Spider-Woman?” Typhoid Mary asked, juggling a tiny flame between her hands.

Spider-Woman looked at her, appraising. “Which personality are we working with here?”

“The one you need,” was all she answered, and Shang-Chi whispered, “I think we’ve got Walker, or maybe Mutant Zero.”

“So long as it’s not the Bloody one.” She hadn’t really run into Typhoid Mary in her dealings much, but the woman’s personalities were rarely on the side of law or justice. Tonight, Spider-Woman hoped that didn’t matter.

She took a deep breath, walking out onto the landing of the foyer of the Sanctum Sanctorum. The front door lay canted on the steps, as she expected, and in the center of the room stood the five Defenders.

Swathed in black, shifting up and down their forms. Daredevil’s eyes were a stark red against his blackened outfit. Misty Knight’s bionic arm pulsed with new, dark purple life. Colleen’s sword glowed a pale purple instead of the white Jessica was used to seeing. Iron Fist’s yellow and green outfit was more brown and black now, and his fists glowed with a sickly purple light. And standing behind them all, arms crossed in front of his barrel chest, was a Luke Cage that terrified Spider-Woman. She remembered suddenly the face of a man coming apart in her hands, on her lips. A horror show of her early days in Los Angeles. Luke Cage’s skin sloughed around, hard as adamantium but flexible as aluminum foil. She shivered uncontrollably.

He said, “We’re here for you, Spider-Woman. You and your kid.”

“You said that already.” She whispered to her group. “Jess, you got Luke?”

Jones cracked her neck. “I’ve punched his lights out before.”

“Good. You sure you wanna fight? Last I heard, you’re not immune to anything.”

Jones shook her head. “If it’s mind control, I’ve got something for that. A little gift from a red-haired telepath.”

Spider-Woman had no idea what that meant, but she nodded. “Everyone else, try not to get split up and don’t let them touch you with their weird dark tendrils.”

Mary scoffed. “I suppose you want us to keep them alive, too.”

“Non-negotiable until I say otherwise, you understand?”

She only stared back blankly. “I’ll do my best, but blades and flames aren’t really for subduing.” The cold, calculating nature of her tone creeped Jessica out, but she tried not to show it.

“Just knock them out. Shock them if you can. That seems to kill the tendrils.”

“None of us are Storm or Electro,” Zelma said. 

Spider-Woman stared down at the group, who waited for her and her team to make a move, or perhaps surrender. Why did Carol bother sending lackeys? She was more powerful than all of them combined. Even on her bad days. The amulet Zelma gave her pulsed. What did those visions mean? Was there something she could use against Carol to bring her out of it?

“Jones.”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you get away?”

“Carol let me go.”

“Like bait?”

“Maybe. But she threw me through a building to force me to run. Pretty sure she’s in there somewhere. They all are.”

“Then I don’t get why this is happening. Is it a distraction?”

In answer, Luke Cage’s tendrils snaked out, and the other four corrupted Defenders launched into motion. A staggering display of physicality between the five of them, and there was nothing for it but to fight.

She’d work out what was going on as they worked to save their friends.

The first clash was Colleen Wing, alighting on the unbroken banister and darting up it, trailing her sword as she slashed at Shang-Chi, who blocked the blade with nunchaku and pushed her back. Coming right behind her was Iron Fist, who rocked into Shang-Chi with a flying fist, knocking him into Typhoid Mary. 

And the rest was impossible to track as all hell broke loose.

Jessica Jones yelled, “Luuuke!” and leaped from the second floor, her clumsy flight launching her directly at her husband. Their fists reached each others’ faces with bone-cracking _thuds_ in mid-air. They crumpled in a heap next to the staircase. Jones disappeared under the shifting darkness surrounding Luke, and her scream of rage vanished as she choked on the tendrils.

Only something triggered around Jones, and the tentacles of spinneret black whipped away from her, releasing her. She gasped in a few deep breaths and then raised a double fist to Luke’s back, pummeling him into the hardwood with a satisfying crack of wood. He launched up from the assault and tossed Jones into a wall, splintering a display of delicate artifacts. Spider-Woman hoped none of them were magic, as that could go very wrong very fast.

Shang-Chi and Mary squared off with Iron Fist and Colleen Wing. Nunchaku flicked, flames danced, daggers whirled about, glowing sword and fists attempted to breach their protective stances. Everywhere the flames licked the old wood of the Sanctum, they doused immediately, as if there were some enchantment upon the building. There probably was, knowing Strange.

And finally, Danny Rand made it through the seemingly impenetrable barrier they had tossed up. He landed a glowing fist on Mary’s shoulder, which sent her flying backwards into the wall. Shang-Chi doubled back trying to cover for her, but Collen used her glowing blade to knock him upside the head in his moment of vulnerability. Darkness consumed them both. It fled Shang-Chi almost immediately, and he coughed, freeing himself. Shuri had been right to clear him for this, it seemed. Mary took longer, but she began to laugh as the darkness crept inside her, and the calm, calculated demeanor of Mutant Zero fell away, replaced by an impassioned, impulsive hyena bray of a laugh. The laugh of a psychopath. 

She yelled, “You want to play in my head? I guarantee my darkness is worse than yours. Enjoy the glimpse of what I’ve done!”

The pooling blackness that swirled around her twitched violently. It tried to retreat, but she burnt it where it lived. All over her skin, fire erupted. She immolated herself, cackling madly, and when the fire dimmed, she stood, unharmed, free of the toxic spinneret darkness.

That was a dangerous gambit, but it seemed to work. Shang-Chi recovered, pulling Mary to her feet, and they rebuffed the corrupted martial artists as they retreated.

Misty Knight didn’t even bother with a physical confrontation. She pulled her sidearm and started shooting at Zelma, who panicked moments before she erected a shield, deflecting the bullets harmlessly into the wall or the floor around her. She made another complicated hand gesture, and Misty’s gun literally ripped itself apart into its component pieces, scattering to the four corners of the room.

Zelma said, “Don’t bring a pistol to a brawl.” In response, Misty grabbed the door on the stairs with her bionic arm and launched it straight for Zelma, who held her hands up in a warding gesture, but her spell wasn’t strong enough to stop the spread of force from the door. It pushed her back into a wooden stand with a vase on it, cracking the jade vase as it hit the ground. Zelma dropped to a knee as Misty vaulted up the steps three at a time, grabbed the railing and launched herself up to where Zelma knelt. 

The darkness spread out from Misty’s bionic arm, crushing the shield like a fist on a pop can. Then it covered Zelma like a swarm of insects, searching for purchase, attempting to reach inside her lungs, fill her pores. 

But Zelma’s personal wards held. She pushed up from the ground, incanting something wicked sounding, and a sudden windwall of force shoved Misty Knight back, tossing her from the second story to plummet to the ground floor below. She landed with a soft thud on a carpet of dark tendrils.

Spider-Woman dodged the chain strikes of her good friend Matt Murdock, slinging his custom baton around. They had dropped down onto the first floor, fighting near the open doorway. She aimed small Venom Blasts at his body, but they were very evenly matched for speed and reflexes and he deftly dodged her attempts to end the fight early. Because of her spider powers and his enhanced senses and reflexes, they couldn’t land blows on each other. 

“I don’t want to fight you, Daredevil,” she said. It was hard enough trying to take down her allies, her friends, but Matt was different. They were close; they had helped each other over and over since she came to New York. Their human identities complemented each other’s lines of work. They trusted each other; they relied on each other.

And now he wanted to subsume her will in a mind control plot out of a cheesy B horror movie from the ‘60s.

“You don’t have to fight, Spider-Woman. Carol wants you, and your son. She plans to honor you. Make you a queen.”

“I want Carol, not whatever sick and twisted thing is riding her around like a sock puppet.”

He split his baton in two, wielding the hook and baton separately. Great. He only did that when the fight wasn’t ending fast enough.

Suddenly, he dodged back, throwing the hook up as Colleen fell backwards off the second story, wrapping around her waist and securing her to the banister, where she held on and freed herself. She rejoined the combat. In that momentary window, Spider-Woman closed the distance. She didn’t need to land a solid hit for her Venom Blast to work. Proximity alone would do it, if she could just get a hand on him.

But as she reached for his back, he spun and clutched her forearms, glowing green hands arcing uselessly upwards. The darkness spread over her once more. That familiar crawling mist like insects swarming her body. She had a hunch, but it was dangerous to play that card. She needed to discharge and free herself, free Matt, if she could.

But the tendrils snaked inside her throat, choking her, taking her mind away. She fought against the rising impulse to go collect Gerry, to join her friends at Carol’s side. And her natural resistance to toxins kicked in. She knew immediately she did not have to obey that command. It was there, pressing against her mind, but it had no sway over her. 

She could generally be affected by most toxins, poisons, and drugs only once. Whatever this was, it followed the same pattern.

She could feel the impulses, but she didn’t have to obey them.

So she played along. She slumped in position as Jones threw Luke Cage through an entire wall, yelling at Jess to fight it.

Murdock said, “We can handle the rest. Go retrieve your child and we can go.”

The impulse inside her urged the same. So she nodded and leaped for the second floor, where Misty and Zelma were at an impasse. Misty punched, kicked, jabbed, but nothing could get through Zelma’s shield, and every time Misty dropped her guard for even a moment, Zelma’s spell bounced her away.

Before Spider-Woman reached the second floor, Jessica Jones collided with her midair, grappling her and throwing off her aim. She yelled about stopping Spider-Woman, but the others were all engaged in their own fights, and Spider-Woman didn’t want to give up her advantage just yet.

So she whispered, “Sorry, Jones,” and Venom Blasted her arm around her neck, sending Jones flying away to crumple into a coughing heap on the ground. Spider-Woman landed next to Zelma, who stared at her with fear in her eyes.

And though Jessica was in control of her body, she realized that she had just given away something crucial in the subterfuge. Zelma was in control of the wards that protected her son. The others instantly recognized this, and began attempting to converge on Zelma.

Spider-Woman grabbed Zelma and threw her back into the hallway, feeling the rebuff of her personal ward as blows against her body. 

Spider-Woman staggered against the personal shield, and yelled, “If you’re not corrupted, you should get clear!”

But she didn’t have time to wait. She charged up her whole body, calling on the deep well of power she sensed within the silver necklace pacing her heartbeat. She had done these area bursts before; they were dangerous and often killed people. She nearly killed herself once or twice in desperation.

But now, she had something extra to call on. She fed the Venom Shockwave from the necklace, and her body glowed green, bright and incandescent, before the room washed over with bioelectric energy. Because she warned the whole room, the spinneret-infected Defenders threw themselves to safety as well. Only Colleen and Danny couldn’t get free, being the closest. Spider-Woman felt the shocks radiate through her, eviscerating the darkness invading her mind. Colleen and Iron Fist dropped to the floor on the second story, as Shang-Chi and Mary disappeared in a vortex of flame that kept the shockwave at bay.

Silence fell in the wake of the Venom Shockwave. Jessica panted, leaning over the railing, as the others of her team regrouped. Zelma’s face appeared at the hallway entrance, and Jessica turned to her.

“Did we win?” Zelma asked.

Jessica groaned. “Not even a little bit. Go to Gerry, double up the wards. They know you’re protecting him. Sorry about that.”

Her eyes widened in fear, but she nodded all the same. “Stephen’s going to be so mad at me when he gets back. You’re destroying this room.” But she saw a hint of satisfaction in Zelma’s stare. The woman was glad to be useful, even if it wasn’t for her mentor.

“And get in touch with Shuri. Get updates. Find out if we’re going to have more help soon.”

“Aye aye, Captain Web-Lady.”

Jessica stiffened at that nickname and glared at Zelma. “No one gets to call me that. Not anymore.”

Zelma cringed back. “You got it, Spider-Woman.”

Zelma disappeared down the hallway, going to protect Gerry. Spider-Woman called to her team, “Rally on my point! We’ve got the advantage now, if only a little bit.”

Jones jumped up from the first floor while Shang-Chi and Mary regrouped with Spider-Woman. The dust settled, and a splintered piece of wood finally fell off the banister, clattering to the ground below. 

With Iron Fist and Colleen out of commission, Daredevil and Misty Knight resurfaced from hallways down below. Luke Cage was still missing after Jones threw him through a wall.

“We can end this now,” Shang-Chi said. “We have a severe advantage, if you can just get down there and shock them.”

“I’m thinking. Luke doesn’t go down this easy,” Spider-Woman replied. “And I didn’t ask Zelma if there was another way up to where she’s hiding with Gerry. Jones?”

“On it. Good luck.” Jessica Jones followed the path Zelma took, regrouping with the woman protecting Gerry Drew.

That left three against two. Spider-Woman still liked those odds. “Mary, which one are you at this point?”

“The one who loves a party,” Mary said, and Spider-Woman had no idea which one that was supposed to be.

“We’re still not killing, is that understood?”

“You’re no fun, my pretty little spider.” She harrumphed, arms crossed in front of her. “But fine. No squishing little bugs.”

Typhoid Mary? Or Bloody Mary. She didn’t know how to tell the difference between the two, but neither was particularly great for a controlled response in combat.

But beggars, choosers, winners, dead people, she thought. 

“You can’t beat us,” Misty Knight said from down below. She rolled her bionic arm, and the pulsing blackness shifted purple and gross, like living muscle.

“We’re kinda doing that already?” Jessica said, letting a little green spark from her fingers. Not a lot. It would take a little time to recharge enough to knock someone else out, and currently it was the most effective weapon they had outside of the uncontrollable flames from Mary.

In response, Daredevil knocked his baton against the floor, and darkness swirled in from outside. Spinnerets. The spider-like creatures that started this whole mess swarmed in, three, four, six, so many they covered the floor of the foyer.

Several snaked up the steps and enveloped Danny and Colleen. Their bodies jerked and lifted upright. Their eyes were dull, but their bodies were animated. Unconscious but still working for the enemy. Inhabited by spinnerets.

“Fuck, that’s terrifying,” Jessica whispered. “This fight just got a whole lot harder. The spinnerets die to more than just energy, but better not let them touch you, just in case.”

Shang-Chi nodded. “Noted, Spider-Woman.”

“Squish?” Mary asked. “Please say yes.”

“The creatures only, but yes. Stomp them like the bugs they are.”

And the fight broke out once more.

“I can even things up,” Shang-Chi said, “if you give me but a moment.”

“Don’t take forever!” Jessica yelled, covering him as Misty and Mary locked blows. Daredevil stood below, waiting for the action to reach him instead of the other way around. He summoned the creatures; maybe he controlled them. Jessica thought she should try to take him out, but it was going to take a minute. Spinnerets swarmed up the stairs and all around Jessica and Shang-Chi. While he concentrated in some pose, martialing a defense of some kind, Jessica dodged and punched one spinneret, flipped back to the wall and off to the ceiling, drop-kicking straight down on one of the black creatures. It dissolved under the blow, and she clocked Daredevil’s head twitch as she destroyed the creature.

Misty’s bionic arm grew in size, suffusing itself with the spinnerets around her, pummeling at the blades that Mary levitated. The woman was bleeding from the eyes as she struggled against each blow against her telekinetic barrier, but she laughed.

Spider-Woman ducked under a leaping strike, then jumped upwards with fists raised as the spinneret sailed over her, pummeling it into the ceiling, where plaster cracked and the creature vanished in a puff of smoke. She dropped onto another, just as it tried to lash out at Shang-Chi, with a flying elbow that would put wrestlers to shame.

Finally, Shang-Chi’s eyes opened, and there were four more of him, almost seeming to phase out of him. The pressure around him shifted suddenly, and Spider-Woman’s ears popped.

“Neat trick,” she said, as the copies of him spread out to take on the spinnerets. “I don’t suppose they have all your abilities, and immunities?”

His eyes widened in surprise. But before he could do anything about it, the first one fell under the swarm. A corrupted Shang-Chi copy rose in its place. “I should have known that!” he hissed, as he charged forward, knocking his other copies away to safety. Jessica cursed at this sudden, additional disadvantage, but there was nothing to do but deal with it.

The original Shang-Chi and his copies jumped to Mary’s defense as the zombie Iron Fist and Colleen reached her, who struggled even more under the corrupted Shang-Chi and the pummeling force of Misty Knight. He threw himself at Misty, peeling her away from Mary, giving her time to recover and lash out with a firestorm on the corrupted Shang-Chi and the spinnerets surrounding her, boiling them away. Iron Fist and Colleen locked into combat with Shang-Chi’s uncorrupted copies. This was a sight to behold, watching the strange, jerky but flopping movements of two of the most precise, fluid martial artists to ever grace this earth.

When the flames roared over him, the corrupted Shang-Chi screamed out in the real Shang-Chi’s voice as the spinneret darkness burned away from inside him. But the fire didn’t stop there, charring his body beyond recognition. Jessica turned away from it, but she couldn’t run from the smell.

When she looked back because the fight wasn’t stopping, Mary didn’t seem to recognize that this wasn’t the real Shang-Chi. She reached out a fiery palm, bloody tears streaming from her eyes. “Not a bug. Not a squish. I wasn’t supposed to!” She grabbed the sides of her head as she dropped to her knees, and shook violently.

When Spider-Woman reached her side and lifted her up, there was only terror in the woman’s gaze. Spider-Woman said, “Are you plain old Mary now?”

The woman shook, sobbing. “What’s going on?” she asked, eyes darting everywhere.

“Great. Shang-Chi!”

Spider-Woman felt the tingle of her Venom Blast, but she wasn’t sure how strong it was going to be. She let it charge up on her free hand as she held Mary against the wall, protecting her. Shang-Chi glanced her way while deflecting Misty’s bionic arm and tendrils with his nunchaku. His copies fell under the combined might of unstoppable spinneret zombies, and when they rose back up, they too were corrupted.

“It’s time to retreat! We lost a useful Mary!” Spider-Woman yelled. Shang-Chi nodded from afar, and as Misty launched a fierce assault, he dodged deftly under her strikes and peppered her side and back with chops and jabs, dropping her.

But Iron Fist and Colleen rejoined the fight just as he had a moment of reprieve. Simply knocking them out wouldn’t work. He had to do something different.

The corrupted Shang-Chi copies came at Spider-Woman, and she growled low in her throat, thinking of Wolverine in the moment. Why would he suddenly occur to her?

The silver amulet pulsed, and her Venom Blast felt stronger. She needed to take out Murdock. Daredevil was controlling this fight, and if she could stop him, the rest might fall.

But she couldn’t leave Mary alone and the thought went unused. So when the corrupted copies and the spinnerets surrounded her, Spider-Woman let loose a torrent of tiny Venom Blasts, each one shooting out like little jolts into her foes. The spinnerets convulsed and vanished, while the corrupted Shang-Chi copies dodged by leaping backwards and over the railing, down to the ground floor, surrounding Daredevil.

Shang-Chi made a complicated series of punches and jabs at key places on Iron Fist and Colleen’s bodies. Their pressure points, no doubt. The corrupting tendrils of the spinnerets still snaked and whipped about, but the bodies could no longer obey their commands.

He grinned as he rushed to Jessica’s side. “Isn’t there a saying about valor and retreating?”

She nodded. “You only get to give your life for a cause once, so make sure it’s the right one. Well, maybe a few times for us. But the point stands.”

They backed up to the doorway, keeping Mary safe while knocking and zapping the spinnerets back. Daredevil and the Shang-Chi copies rushed up the steps now, and the battle became fierce and close. Not much room to evade in a hallway.

“Take her! I’ll cover you!” Spider-Woman yelled.

“You are the reason they’re here!” Shang-Chi shouted right back. “You take her and I will hold them here.”

Torn between her own stubbornness and the desire to get back to her child--to make sure Zelma and Jones had made it and protected Gerry--warred within her. The amulet pulsed on her neck, and felt… pulled towards Gerry. Towards the warded room farther in.

That decided her. Whatever this magic thing was trying to tell her, she assumed it was best to listen to it.

Shang-Chi stopped as Spider-Woman nodded and grabbed Mary’s wrist, pulling her along. “They will not get beyond me,” he promised.

He stood in the stance he used earlier to summon copies of himself, but none appeared. The spinnerets swarmed above him in the hallway; his corrupted copies charged forward. Daredevil’s chain hook rushed forward between them, at Shang-Chi’s center mass.

And missed. Despite hitting the very center of him and the man not moving.

Only he _did_ move. So fast that Spider-Woman couldn’t track it as she pulled Mary down the hall, turning a corner. Her last sight of Shang-Chi was a blur of motion, as if many copies of him occupied the same space, punching, kicking, elbowing, leaping up and striking down. Nothing passed by him.

When Spider-Woman turned to focus on the warded room, her ears caught the sound before her eyes did, and she grabbed Mary around the waist as she leaped up to the ceiling, clinging to it with her wall-crawling ability. In the space recently vacated, Luke Cage tumbled through, Jessica Jones barreling right after him, punching and kicking. When Luke seemed like he would recover, Jones did a little Captain Marvel maneuver, something from her Jewel days. She launched herself forward into a bit of clumsy flight, fists forward, and connected with Luke’s center mass. Only he was prepared for it, and grabbed her wrists as he planted his feet.

“This would be so much easier if you’d just give in, honey,” Luke said, straining with his wife now that her momentum had crashed.

“If I didn’t know before you weren’t you, that sealed it,” Jones hissed. “No one who knows dick about me would tell me to just let it happen.”

Spider-Woman eased down from the ceiling while the two locked strength and will behind her. “Come on, Mary,” she said, ”We’re nearly safe. Just a few more steps.”

They reached the warded door, whose physical door was open, and inside Zelma held Gerry, wide-eyed and angry. “Wards holding?” Spider-Woman asked.

Zelma nodded. “It’ll take more than an unbreakable man to get through this.” She waved her free hand and the yellow wards scintillated in front of the opening. Jessica reached out a finger and felt the magical energy running through it. Like her amulet. Her charge was building up again, and the amulet pulsed with her heartbeat once more.

“Open up, we’ve lost the good Mary for the innocent one.”

Zelma sat Gerry on a big comfy chair in this room that appeared to be a study of some sort, and her fingers twitched and spun. The ward dropped away and Spider-Woman deposited Mary inside, then turned back to the action in the hallway.

Shang-Chi appeared at the end of the hallway, a few feet behind where Jones and Cage knocked each other around. He was flagging, and his movements were sluggish. Luke was winning the contest of wills against Jones. They couldn’t win, but they couldn’t give in, either.

“How long to raise the ward again?” Spider-Woman asked.

“About ten seconds?”

“Get ready. We’re gonna cut it close!”

She darted back down the hallway as Shang-Chi backed up into Luke and Jones. The tendrils along Luke’s back swiped at Shang-Chi, distracted from his corrupted copies pushing him back. They knocked him down, and the spinnerets and copies swarmed him. Jones used that moment to throw Luke off-balance, driving a fist into his chin in a brutal uppercut, lifting him over her head. 

Spider-Woman used that moment to launch above the two of them, landing on Luke’s chest as he hung suspended briefly in the air before gravity asserted itself. She pushed all the bioelectric energy she had into her limbs, and jumped with all energy in her legs, pushing Luke into the floor as a Venom Shockwave rocked out of his body, up and down the hallway. Spider-Woman clung to the ceiling once more as everything in the hallway--human, spinneret, or otherwise--collapsed or vanished. Silence in the hallway as the green sparks dissipated.

She heaved breaths, spent. Jones and Shang-Chi lay on the floor, coughing. Luke was unconscious. The corrupted copies had fizzled out and lay as inert corpses.

Daredevil rounded the corner, unhurt. Smiling. Spider-Woman cursed and dropped to the ground, grabbing at Shang-Chi.

“We’ve got to go, buddy.” She helped him stand, dragged him along the hall to where Jones got to her feet, leather jacket smoking and hair frizzed up like a kid at the science museum.

Jones spat blood and coughed again. “A little warning next time, Other Jess?”

“Sure thing, Other Other Jess.” They grinned at each other as Daredevil stalked down the hall. “Let’s get inside the room.” They retreated towards the door, calling, “Incoming!” as they ran.

Mary appeared at the doorway and took Shang-Chi’s arm, helping him inside. Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones had a brief moment of stubbornness about who went in next, and Spider-Woman lost that fight as well. They were here to keep her safe. To keep Gerry safe.

Daredevil’s chain hook snaked up between them, silenced by the black tendrils. They knocked Jones away in surprise, sending her through the doorway as Spider-Woman reached out for the doorframe. Tried to hold on to it. The hook wrapped around her, tightening, pulling her back.

And just as she was about to pull herself through, her fingers touched something solid in the air. The yellow glowing lattice of wards popped back up into place, blocking Spider-Woman off from safety. Zelma cried out in shock at being too early. Jones beat against the lattice from inside as Spider-Woman’s fingers splayed against the outside, gripping them just like they were a wall, holding her in place. Daredevil--her friend Matt Murdock--yanked on the chain, pulling her away from it, but she held on. The amulet around her neck pulsed, and pulled in a different direction now.

A moment of calm stole over Jessica Drew. She had failed to get to safety, but she had kept the others safe. Gerry was well-protected with an unexpected coalition of allies. One last look at Gerry, who babbled helpfully in Zelma's arms, pulling at her knit cap. Nothing was going to take her kid away from her.

She let her lips curl up into a beatific grin. “Keep my kid safe. I’m gonna finish this.” 

Jones screamed, “No! Zelma, open this god-damn ward!”

Spider-Woman’s splayed fingers relaxed, and their grip on the magic ward fell away. She let herself be yanked back, into the waiting tendrils of spinneret darkness that swept her away in a vortex of black and purple energy. 

Taking her to Carol. To exactly where the amulet wanted her to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carol and Jess reunite next chapter! Everything will probably be great, right?


	6. The Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Jones and the rest of Spider-Woman's left-behind team plot to keep Gerry safe. Jessica Drew is brought before Dark Marvel, the corrupted Carol Danvers.

At the Sanctum--held in place by hastily-assembled magical wards--Jessica Jones and the others protected Gerry. Well, the wards did like 99% of the work. The spider things, spinnerets, couldn’t break through the wards, but it didn’t stop them from trying. Keeping Jessica and the others here, keeping them occupied. Every second they were in here, Spider-Woman was pulled farther away.

Jones rapped a knuckle on the ward over the doorway. Her corrupted husband, Luke Cage, stood on the other side, arms folded in front of him, glistening black and purple with the spinnerets swirling over him. Colleen and Danny--both also still corrupted but now conscious again, thank God--punched and kicked at the ward. Danny’s darkly glowing fist was a terrifying sight, but it rebounded off the ward without damage.

“Luke, can you hear me?” She turned to Zelma, who still held baby Gerry. “This isn’t soundproof or something to the outside, is it?”

Zelma pushed her glasses up with a free hand, then had to hold them in place while Gerry tried to grab at them. “Do you want it to be?” she asked as Gerry settled for pulling her knit cap from her head, and static sent her black hair flying. Gerry found this hilarious, and flipped the knit cap off into a corner in his excitement.

“No,” Jones said, crossing her arms in the same way as Luke. “Just… Carol broke through for a moment when she took the others, and that’s why I got away. Thought I could maybe break through to, you know, my husband.”

Shang-Chi stood from where he was conversing quietly with Mary. Whichever Mary it was at this point. The useless one. “It is worth a try. Can you tell us the circumstances around Carol breaking through and fighting it off?”

Jones recounted what she could. She had screamed about mind control, about how she’d kill herself before letting something control her again.

“Is that true?” Mary asked. After seeing her in various states of competence and manic glee, this timid persona was almost creepy.

“Hell yes,” Jones said. “I’ve got protection against that kind of thing these days, but I will never go back through that shit.”

“How do you have protection?” Zelma asked. “I understand the theory behind the others. Shang-Chi can block the toxic effect. I had a personal shield that kept it from getting into me. Mary’s mind is--too fractured? But what about you?”

Jones shrugged. “Jean Grey hooked me up with a little psychic barrier the last time Killgrave came after me.” She shivered. Even saying his name was vile. “Point is, I had protection.”

“Carol recognized the trauma,” Shang-Chi said. “She saw your pain and that broke the control.”

“Maybe. I don’t really, uh, wear that shit on my sleeve.” But if that’s what did it, maybe she could get through to Luke. He had his own share of trauma. They all did.

She tapped on the ward again. Colleen and Danny stopped their strikes, and Luke stepped forward. “Y’all should just give up already. We’ve already got Spider-Woman.”

Jones scoffed. “You don’t know Drew very well if you think you’ve ‘got’ her. She’s like the rest of you out there. Once she gets close, it’s too late.”

“She can’t stop the darkness, Jess. No one can at this point.”

“If that were true, you’d be able to break through this ward.”

Luke shrugged. “We’ll get there.” 

It had been a little while since Spider-Woman was ripped away from them. Matt and Misty had been gone just as long. Had they simply escorted Jessica to Carol?

She turned to Zelma and whispered, “Does your magical ward thing extend into the walls? The floor?”

Zelma gasped a fraction of a second before the ceiling caved in. Misty Knight dropped through it to land in a cloud of dust and debris in the center of the room. Her bionic fist had punched straight through. Fortunately no one had been in the center, and Zelma covered Gerry’s face.

Jessica jumped at Misty, intending to grab her and toss her back through the hole in the roof, but Misty launched a pulsing, black bionic arm out at her, knocking her back into the ward, which shuddered. Shang-Chi put himself between Zelma and Misty while Jessica rammed her elbow into the pulsing black that still held her against the wall. It felt like slamming into rubber-wrapped steel and her arm vibrated painfully against it. 

Spinnerets circled the hole in the ceiling, crawling over each other, fighting their way in. Misty kicked out, and Shang-Chi blocked with his own kick. They matched blow for blow even while Misty’s corrupted bionic arm was occupied with Jones. 

“No!” Mary shouted, levitating off the ground, hands held out in front of her, fingers splayed. Terror was in her eyes. Flames orbited around her, rose up to the ceiling, engulfed the spinnerets as they clawed and tore through the wood and plaster. It roared over them, pushing them back. Jones had a split second to note that Danny and Colleen had also disappeared from in front of the ward. They must be coming for the breach. Or preparing to make another one.

While Shang-Chi and Misty locked forms, and Mary occupied herself with the ceiling, Jones called out, “Hey, sorcerer! Better make that ward cover the entire room!” Zelma nodded, setting Gerry down on the bed so she could cast with both hands. Someone needed to get to Gerry. 

Jessica Jones pictured her own daughter in Gerry’s place, and knew she couldn’t fail. She twisted back to the ward, eyes locking onto Luke Cage, who stood ready to rush in if the ward fell. “What would Dani think about us fighting, Luke!? Do you want her to grow up in a world of darkness, of free will a distant memory?”

A darkly glowing purple blade shot up from the floor, nearly swiping Shang-Chi as he performed the delicate dance of fist, elbow, knee, jab against Misty Knight. They were coming from every angle. Zelma needed more time. Gerry cried from the bed, wiping plaster dust from his face and staring at it like it was the most horrible thing to ever touch him.

Something ticked across Luke’s face. His expression changed from bored dismissal to one of horror, and he placed a palm against the ward briefly, ever so briefly, which Jones matched with her own. Then he darted down the hallway, out of sight. The sword in the floor sawed through, cutting away the wood timbers like cardboard.

The spinnerets redoubled their efforts, sacrificing themselves to break through. They rushed at Gerry, and Jones levered her feet on the wall. She wasn’t much of a flier, but she could launch off of surfaces with the best of them. The wall ripped apart as she shoved off, pulling the black pulsing energy along with her, and she soared through the room, twisting Misty Knight off-balance just enough. Shang-Chi took advantage and pummeled Misty’s pressure points, rendering her unable to move.

The sword sawing its way through suddenly jerked and ripped downwards. Luke Cage grunted from somewhere below, fighting Danny and Colleen. Jessica Jones found herself free of Misty’s hold suddenly. She bounced off the bed, snatching Gerry from the spinnerets just as they reached the little guy, and flew into the wall in a barely-controlled spin, which cracked on her back, stealing her breath. She held Gerry safely in her arms, though, and Zelma’s spell went off as the last of the spinnerets burned away.

The ward spun up all around them now, the yellowish orange runes spider-webbed all over the place, blocking out the spinnerets, the corrupted Defenders. 

Mary dropped from her levitation, panting. Gerry laughed gaily, clapping at the show in front of him. Shang-Chi lowered to a knee, holding all the places that Misty had countered his strikes with her own. The swirling black overtook him, but his resistance pushed them off, and as they dripped to the ground, tiny flames swallowed them, burning them away.

“Well, that fucking sucked,” Jones said, then clapped a hand over her mouth. 

Too late. Gerry gleefully repeated, “‘Uck ‘uck ‘uck.” Jones groaned. Just her luck that the one time she swore in front of the kid, he happened to hear it.

“If we live through this, I’m blaming that on Misty.”

Speaking of Misty, she was on the ground, sprawled out, unable to move. But conscious. Still corrupted. And they couldn’t risk burning it out of her. Misty was only human, no super powers to carry her through what would kill anyone else.

Mary knelt beside Shang-Chi, running a hand over his back in a soothing gesture. He coughed, and laughed, accepting her help. 

Zelma said, eyes downcast, “I’m sorry, guys. I’m still pretty new to all this, it didn’t occur to me to put the ward all around us.”

“Hey, we got there,” Jones said. “Mistakes are just teachable moments that you lived through.”

Shang-Chi’s cell phone went off as he sat on the bed with Mary. He pulled it from a pocket and stared at it. “A little surprised this didn’t break. It’s Shuri.”

He answered the call and put it on speaker, then handed the phone off to Mary. “I’ll watch our guest.”

Mary stared at the rest of the group, eyes wide with confusion. She held the phone out to Jones and said, “I’m--I’m not the leader.”

Shuri’s voice came through the speakers. “Would whoever has Shang-Chi’s phone please respond?”

Jones took it and stood in the middle of the room, offloading Gerry on Zelma again. He was still repeating “‘uck” over and over, seeming fascinated with the grimaces of his annjayjo every time he said it.

“Someone should wash that mouth out with soap,” Shuri said. “Does that mean the boy is still safe?”

Jones said, “Yeah, Shuri. We’re a little beat up, and Spider-Woman got taken, but the rest of us are here. We also, I guess, have one of them as a prisoner? Misty Knight’s here, and she’s a little preoccupied with the floor right now.”

“Are you all safe to be around the contagion?”

Jones shrugged. “Seems like it. It’s not doing anything now that Misty’s out of commission.”

“So you have a test subject for me.”

“We’re not exactly--what’s the word I’m looking for?” She stared at Zelma, who pulled her glasses off her face to keep Gerry from continuing to play with them, then smoothed her hair. 

“Mobile?”

“We’re trapped inside the Sanctum.”

“Which is more than a little bit destroyed,” Zelma added.

“Strange can take it up with Captain Marvel, if we get her back.”

“When,” Jones growled.

“When. Apologies, Jessica Jones. If you cannot bring the sample to a lab, perhaps I can guide you in testing out its capabilities and weaknesses.”

Zelma said, “I’ve got some tissue and hair samples from Gerry as well. Spider-Woman said he’s immune, and they definitely want him over any of the rest of us with resistance for some reason.

“We’ve got bigger problems than that,” Jones said, and filled Shuri in on what had happened, where Jessica Drew had presumably been taken. “Most are still here, in fact, waiting for their chance to take Gerry.”

“Hmm. I have some theories, but we’ll need to verify my hypotheses. I will gather my equipment. Switch us to video call, please.”

“Hey, I’ve only got so much data,” Shang-Chi said, then shut up at Jones’ death glare. “I guess this is also not the time for jokes.”

Mary laughed, though. There was something wild and unhinged in that laugh, but Jessica Jones knew a trill of attraction when she heard it. Shang-Chi’s life was going to somehow get even more complicated after this was over. 

Jones handed the phone off to him. Let Zelma help with the technical stuff. She went back to the door, where the trio of Luke, Danny, and Colleen had gathered once more.

“I suppose you’re back to being mind-slave?” Jones asked, and Luke’s black eyes shimmered for the briefest moment before he nodded.

“Don’t worry, Jones,” he said. “We’re gonna swing by and get Dani after this, add her to the collective.”

Jessica hissed, “You’ll do that if you want to find out just how unbreakable you really are. My money’s on not enough.”

“Jones,” Zelma said, pulling Jessica’s attention back to the matter at hand. “Shuri’s got some tests for us to run. In order to do them, Shang-Chi’s gotta free Misty from the, uh, whatever he did to her.”

“You want I should sit on her, boss?”

“Something like that.”

“Mary, can you hold onto the kid?” Jessica asked.

The woman shook her head. “It might be best if I don’t. I know a lot of my triggers to switch, but new ones pop up sometimes.”

Great. Having Typhoid Mary on the team was a little like having a grenade with a faulty pin. It might fall out at any moment, and then they’d have problems.

“Well, let’s just play this by ear. Shuri, if we’re gonna do this, we should hurry. We’ve got Gerry safe in here, but Luke’s threatening our kid and I’m not about to let that shit slide.”

Gerry didn’t glom onto that word, but he was still happily repeating “‘uck” every chance he got.

“Okay, here is what we need to do,” Shuri’s face said on the phone.

*****

Born upon the spinneret darkness, chained by Daredevil, Spider-Woman glided down silent, darkened streets. It was daytime, and yet there was a creepy twilight across Manhattan. The spider-like creatures that carried her chittered and danced along the street, while Matt Murdock jogged behind the procession. Infected people lined the sidewalks; none spoke, all stared at Jessica Drew. She wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen next, but the silver heart necklace pulsed against her throat comfortingly. It wanted this to happen. She still had no idea what it was supposed to do, what those living memories, false and real, were meant to show her. But she needed to trust in it, otherwise this was all going to go so horribly wrong for nothing but her trust in an apprentice sorcerer, in the certainty in her chest that she could finish this, and get her Carol back.

“Murdock,” she called.

“You shouldn’t struggle, Spider-Woman,” Matt said, easily keeping pace as they forged ahead. Jessica thought they were headed for the satellite office of the Avengers here in Manhattan. The original Avengers Mansion was long gone, and the Stark Tower likewise destroyed, but they maintained a presence here in the city. How could they not? New York City was where roughly 90% of all superpowered criminal activity occurred. 

“You might notice that I’m not, in fact, struggling,” she said. “I’ve had the spinnerets in my head, but I’ve resisted them. What’s it like?”

Daredevil’s head cocked to the side. “What is what like?”

“Having no will of your own. Giving up when you should be fighting.”

Daredevil grinned as they moved. “There’s nothing to gain from free will, Jessica. It leads to pain, isolation, chaos.”

“That sounds like Daredevil’s motto.”

“Perhaps it was, before. Now, there will be darkness. There will be order. We will never toil in obscurity, never be mishandled, never betrayed. We will be guided by the spinneret.”

“Pass,” Jessica said. “If I’m not allowed to make a bad decision and get drunk about it later, then what is even the point?”

“You joke, but have you truly considered the answer to such a question?”

Jessica had. So many times. There was a whole period of her life she hated to think about, after she came back from the Skrull invasion, having been supplanted by a queen in a plot to overthrow the entire earth. Replaced because Carol and she were on a break. Replaced because Jessica was a loner. Replaced because no one would notice discrepancies in her behavior until it was too late. Once she returned, she pointed her lips to a bottle, until someone pointed her fists to more Skrulls, to Hydra. If these spinnerets had taken Carol during Jessica’s darkest period, would she have resisted at all? Or would she have welcomed the oblivion of Carol’s dark love and ruled a planet of nothing, just to stop feeling?

She was terrified of that answer, so she pushed it away. Instead, she said, “My son, my girlfriend, my friends and allies. They make life worth living. They make that free will you so disdain taste oh so good.”

“You can have those things and more.” They reached the satellite office of the Avengers, and Jessica was unsurprised to find it a giant, black, pulsating hive of spinnerets. She had a deep suspicion that all the bioelectric energy in the world wasn’t going to stop Carol in the heart of darkness. After all, Carol could absorb energy; who was to say she couldn’t keep doing that in this spinneret-controlled form? She needed to understand her vision if she had any hope of getting out of this.

The swirling, writhing spinnerets opened a portal as they approached, and she was guided inside. Daredevil departed. 

So. It was to be just Carol and Jessica after all. That might make things easier… or much, much harder.

Once inside the lobby, she Venom Blasted the creatures carrying her along, and dropped to the ground in a defensive crouch, fingers sparkling with green energy. More swarmed around her, but she held her ground and said, “I’m here to see the--uh--Queen, I guess? Am I the queen? Royal nomenclature is very last century.”

The spinnerets ceased their swarming and crowded around her, but left her alone. They herded her, but allowed her to walk on her own. Through the lobby, into an elevator, and coming out a few stories up. She passed within an exercise area, and beyond it into a training arena. The deeper into the building she went, the darker it became. The more the spinnerets coated every surface. She stepped upon them even as she left the elevator, and cringed at the way they crackled under her boots.

The closer to the black mass in the training arena, the harder the silver amulet pulsed, until it was almost a jackhammer against her chest. The training arena was coated in the same black, purplish creatures, and as she neared it, they cleared away, revealing an observation window looking down upon the arena. 

And there, in the midst of a swirling pool of depthless, dark shadow, was Carol.

Dark Carol, Jess reminded herself. She was in there, but buried. 

Carol soaked up the darkness, absorbing it. Her eyes opened and trained on Jessica through the observation window, and smiled.

Her voice, but not her voice, came from everywhere. She spoke in many voices, but Jessica could pick out the woman she loved. “Bring her to me.”

Jessica let herself be corralled by the spinnerets, plotting. What was her play here? Attack? Destroy this glimmering, dark pool with Carol at the center of it, hope her augmented Venom Blast was enough? Was that what the vision the amulet had given her wanted? Why show her all that confusing stuff about Lindsay, and Logan, and Carol, then?

Jessica Jones said she broke through momentarily. Should she appeal to Carol’s humanity? To her love? 

If so, what then? She kept coming back to her Venom Blast. To the bioelectric energy that proved effective at killing the spinnerets. Where was Ororo, or Thor, when she needed them? Not here. 

An interior door opened, leading Jessica into the training arena. Carol emerged from the pool, floating over to stand before Jessica.

“You know you can’t win,” Jess said. 

“Win, Lose… there are no conditions to this,” Carol said, stepping close, raising a hand to Jess’s face in a loving gesture. One Carol often did when they were alone. Jess stepped back, away from the hand.

“What do the spinnerets want, Carol?”

For a moment, frustration creased Carol’s brow, and Jess thought she might step forward and force her hand upon Jess’s cheek, but she dropped her hand and smiled slightly.

“The spinnerets are not really a desirous entity. We simply wish to occupy the dark places. As people spread light, people destroy our habitat.”

Well, that sounded not so great. Jessica shrugged. “So what? They’ve always been here, and now they’re just pissed? We took too much of their darkness, and now they’re reclaiming it?”

“Precisely.”

“So what’s all this queen nonsense? Why do you want my kid?”

Tendrils of dark reached out of Carol, surrounding the two of them, creating something like a void. Carol shrugged, and the darkness shuddered with her. Jessica straightened her visor, trying to activate the comms while she did. It was silent, and she hugged herself in isolation.

Carol said, “Queen is a word that means something. The spinnerets, in accepting people into their collective, have accepted your language. You understand my need for an other because I spoke it in your language.”

“It’s our language, Carol. You’re in there and I’m not leaving here without you. And only you.”

“You can’t leave this place. The darkness has taken it. If you would just accept us, we could move on.”

“You haven’t explained why you need my son. I already know he’s immune, probably gets it from me.”

Carol’s head shook. “The two are not the same. Whereas we occupy your mind, your thoughts, even if we cannot control you, your son is impenetrable. I tried to take him, and though the darkness entered him, it had no effect. We had no effect.”

Jessica heard it that time. A crack in the armor. She smiled. “You’re afraid of him. Of a little baby. Well, my ragtag team is keeping him safe, out of your reach. They’ll figure out how to nullify you, free you, and we can put this behind us.”

Carol frowned. “My spinnerets will find a way in. They will bring him to the darkness.”

“You’re so confident. Normally I find that irresistible. Right now it just makes me sorry for you.”

“Why is that, my queen?”

Jessica charged up a Venom Blast. They wouldn’t get anywhere talking. She held her hand out, with the green energy sparkling between her fingertips. Carol made no defensive move against the threatening green light.

“Because I think the spinnerets, the darkness, didn’t account for human avarice. For kree strength. I think Carol Danvers is stronger than the entirety of your collective, and what you want and what she wants are at odds.”

“And why do you think that?” Carol tensed, and the void around them pulsed with what Jessica would call nervousness.

“Because you, Carol, broke through earlier, when faced with a friend. Because you, Carol, want a queen, which doesn’t sound like anything the spinnerets should care about. And because you, Carol Danvers, keep speaking in singular and in plural. If you were in control, there’d be no need for singular. If you were in control, there’d be no need for this. They don’t want me; you do. They don’t want Gerry; you do.”

“That’s--no,” Carol said, holding a hand up to ward against Jessica’s words. 

Jessica gave her no time to react, though. She darted forward, palm out, and hit Carol in the center of her chest with as much bioelectric energy as she could muster. Nothing Jess could do to Carol could kill her, so she fed it all. Every last drop. A shockwave of green energy shot out from them, ripping away the void, rippling harmlessly across the pool of darkness that fed Carol. The dark outfit Carol wore changed ever so briefly to be her normal red, blue, and gold.

And it failed. The pool redoubled, filling Carol like a tether, and her outfit began to shift back to the dark inversion.

The necklace, the silver heart amulet, pulsed and thudded. The creatures swarmed over them both, now, and Jessica had nothing left to fight them off. They’d get inside her, and eventually she’d give in.

But Carol’s face changed from one of anger and frustration into fear and confusion. She gripped Jessica’s arm on her chest, and whispered, “I don’t know how to fight them off, Jess. They want my heart, and they don’t understand that it lives outside of me.”

Jess gasped to hear it. They loved each other, of course they did. But to hear it in such a way broke Jess. But an idea flamed. 

“You trust me, right, Carol?”

She nodded. “With everything. You should go. I can get you free.” 

Jessica shook her head no. “We’re in this together.” She wrapped her arm around Carol and pulled her close, even as the darkness enveloped them both, wrapped them in a cocoon of living night. She yanked the necklace off her chest, its fine chain snapping easily, and held it in her free hand. She hugged Carol to her, entwining her hand into Carol’s fingers and squeezed. The necklace pulsed between their palms, and their heartbeats slowed to match each other’s, with the necklace establishing the link.

“I love you, Carol Danvers, and I’ll always be your queen.” She kissed Carol, falling into that darkness, trusting in that love. Carol returned the kiss even as she became Dark Carol once more. It became insistent, greedy. Carol roved over Jessica’s mouth while her fist tensed and squeezed, threatening to snap Jess’s fingers like twigs.

Though she was hurt, exhausted, grossed out by this needful groping, Jessica Drew held on. She returned the love underlying it all.

And when her eyes opened, she and Carol were sitting on the couch in her old apartment once more. As in the vision. Only Carol had Lindsay’s hair, wore Lindsay’s clothing. But it was definitely Carol.

Round Two, Jess thought, and grinned.


	7. The Heart Of Dark And Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Drew fights for Carol Danvers in the amulet's vision. The final battle commences.

Carol was Lindsay. That wild mane of platinum blonde. Skimpy clothes that Carol would never wear now, let alone this long ago, when she was in a superhero leotard with her cheeks hanging out in her professional life. She wore boyish stuff as often as not, being suited to it from the Air Force life. 

The Carol in Lindsay’s clothing held a half-drunk glass of wine in one hand, and the TV remote in the other. 

That instantly set off Jess’s alarms.

“Let’s put the wine down, yeah?” she said, reaching for the glass. When Carol didn’t immediately respond, Jess took the glass. This wasn’t real, she was pretty sure, but letting Carol fall off the wagon was not happening on her watch.

Carol let it go, then almost seemed to come alive. To animate instead of blandly watching television.

She stared at Jessica for a moment, and said, “If you wanted your own, I could have grabbed you a glass, babe.”

She stood and Jess yanked her back down onto the couch. This wasn’t Carol, even if it looked like her. It was Lindsay.

“I just think we should hold off on the drinking for a bit. … I want to talk to you about something.” She pushed into her memories, looking for some way through this. 

But Carol huffed and puffed and let herself drop into Jess’s lap, so that she stared up from Jess’s legs. “You’re such a meanie when you’ve been punching bad guys.” She threw a couple of exaggerated punches at the air, and smiled. “What’s up, roomie?”

Jess couldn’t help it. This was an intimate position, one she and Carol shared. Without really thinking about it, she smoothed the wild Lindsay locks and smiled.

“This is so weird,” she muttered, but lifted Carol up and got her seated next to her again. “I think you’re in there, Carol, but I can’t be sure.”

Carol snorted laughter. “Are you high?” Her face scrunched up in thought. “Can you get high?”

Not really. “We have to do this together,” she said.

Carol’s eyes narrowed. “Do what?”

She didn’t know the answer, but she shrugged and smiled. “You know, be roommates. Know each other’s most intimate thoughts and secrets.”

Jess leaned into Carol, and Carol lifted an arm to let Jess lean in, rest her head on her shoulder. She missed these times with Lindsay. Back when her life was somehow more and less complicated than it was right now. They had each other’s backs, through thick and thin. Through all of Lindsay’s acting. Through all of Jess’s PI endeavors. When the whole world was arrayed against Spider-Woman, Lindsay knew who she was and had her back.

And yet Lindsay was also wrong for her in some ways. Maybe that’s what this was.

“You’re awful clingy tonight, Jess.” She didn’t push her friend away, though.

“It’s just. I didn’t know how much I missed this. And how much I need to let it go. You’re not right for me, but in almost all the right ways, you are.”

“You’re still not making any sense.” Before Carol could say more, Jess pulled her face in and kissed her, silencing whatever she was going to say.

Suddenly there were bristly, unshaven mustache hairs pricking her face. She dropped back from--that’s right. Wolverine was next in this vision. She had never kissed him before, and felt a deep sense of shame that she did so now. It was all mixed up with Logan and Lindsay’s short relationship. Mixed up with Carol and Logan’s friendship. Mixed up with all the time Jess spent around Logan in Madripoor. As Avengers together.

And to top it off, this wasn’t actually Logan. Oh, he had the ridiculous triangles of hair, the mutton chops, the nose broken and healed so many times it should have been a mangled mess but somehow wasn’t. The furry arms. Logan was a very hairy person, and Jess had never been able to confirm just how much of his body it covered until he sat there in a robe half-open on her couch.

No. It was Logan’s body, Carol’s face. Just like with Lindsay. It was… deeply disturbing. When this was all over, Jess was pretty sure she’d never get this image out of her head. 

She stifled a laugh, and Carol in Logan’s form shrugged and popped open a can of beer with one adamantium claw.

She once again snagged the alcohol away from Carol, only the Logan in her came through. “Hey, get your own, babe. I earned this sixer and I aim to make it a none-er before the hour is up.”

“Not if you want anything else to happen tonight,  _ babe _ .” He grunted and reached for another of the cans on the coffee table. She grabbed the remaining 5 in their rings and kept them out of his reach. He was so much shorter than Jess that it wasn’t difficult, unless he wanted to make it difficult.

“What’s wrong with you tonight? It’s just a few beers.”

Jess hesitated. “I want you sober for what comes next.” This was also wrong, but she leaned in and licked her lips. Her conception of Logan as a lover, as a romantic individual, was one of brusqueness and solitude. He was so rarely in a relationship that she had never seen the intensity with which he approached them. 

She saw it now. He growled aggressively and leaned forward, forcing Jess to lean back on the couch as he stalked over. Loomed above her. He might be short, but his frame was impressive above the waist. And that it was Carol’s face made all the difference.

He said, “I can race you to the bed, or wrestle you right here.”

His knee nudged between her legs, separating them. She didn’t want this from Wolverine, but there was a certain satisfaction in the way he controlled the encounter. In the way that Carol had earlier. It wasn’t  _ right _ . As none of this was right. But it was close. 

Aside from that very first initiation in which Carol had confessed her desires to Jess, Jess had been the one to be aggressive. To be in control. Carol was always in control in the field. She relinquished it in their relationship.

Not like this. Not like now.

But she grabbed Carol by her Wolverine neck and pulled her down, kissed her roughly until the facial whiskers vanished and smooth, soft skin greeted her lips, her cheek.

When she opened her eyes, it was Carol. The real Carol now, not Carol in someone else’s body, someone else’s clothes.

Jess sighed with relief. 

Only Carol’s blue eyes flickered black and she hungrily plunged down against Jess’s body, caressing and kissing. Needful. It was Dark Carol, and Jess needed to fight back. Get the real Carol to come out.

Only it felt so good. She hadn’t been touched like this in too long. She wanted this energy sometimes, and rarely got it.

“Wait, wait,” Jess said, hurried and whispering, pushing up on Carol as she was making her way down Jess’s body.

Carol growled, like when she was Logan, but let herself be pushed back.

“I need the real you now, Carol. Not this farce. Not this husk pretending to be you.”

Her black eyes flickered briefly between blue and back to black, and she laughed. Spoke with many voices. “You can have me, and more. You just have to let go.”

“You’re not even doing this for the Spinnerets,” Jess said. “You’re selfishly hoarding me for your own benefit. For your own needs. You’ve enslaved the dark creatures to a human will, and I could never be with or join that. Never again. I’d rather be dead. I’d rather kill  _ you _ than let you suffer it.”

Dark Carol pouted, but then laughed. “I’ll get you eventually. And when you finally let them in, let us in, you will wonder why you ever resisted.”

“Spoken like every villain ever,” Jess said, and leaned forward, taking Carol’s cheek in a palm. The corrupted woman leaned into the caress, smiling faintly. She needed Jess. It wasn’t just a selfish desire. For some reason that eluded Jess, Dark Carol desperately needed her Queen. Jess specifically.

“You fought it out there, you can fight it in here,” Jess insisted. She charged a little energy into her palm and let it out into Carol’s cheek. It wasn’t enough to do anything. Just a little jolt. Like static shock after shuffling across the carpet.

Dark Carol flinched, though, and pulled back. “I don’t want to fight you, Jess, but I will. And I think we both know it’s not a fight you can ever hope to win.”

“Hey, just because you’re Omega, and I’m more suited to dudes in porcupine suits, doesn’t mean you win automatically.”

“It kind of does, my Queen.” She leaned forward once more, taking Jess’s head in her hands and pulling her close. Not forcing it. Gentle; insistent. The tendrils of darkness spread out of Dark Carol once more, and enveloped her before overtaking Jess. She was becoming Dark Marvel. The suit shifted into place, black and poison purple.

It stretched, overtaking Jessica’s face and slithering down her body. Here in this space, Jessica wore her original outfit suddenly, the gaudy red and yellow, but as the blackness overtook her, the suit became the new one Tony had made for night missions, infiltrations. All black and Spider-Man referential. She didn’t like the new suit, but she reminded herself that this was a vision. This was a shared adventure between Carol and Jessica. It had meaning. 

And if it meant something, maybe she needed to see this through. Dark Marvel was right; she couldn’t hope to beat Carol. A-list versus C-list. 

So Spider-Woman let the darkness in despite her insistence moments ago that she would rather die. She embraced it. “I’ll be your Queen, Dark Marvel.”

The suit solidified as the vision warbled around them. Carol grinned and pulled Jessica in for a passionate kiss, rough and needful but everything Jessica loved about her girlfriend.

The red spider-webs were replaced by a pulsing purple. She was Dark Arachne to Carol’s Dark Marvel. 

The vision ended, and they stood together in the pool of inky black in the training arena, wreathed in darkness, hands clutching the heart amulet, only now it was broken in two.

Spider-Woman felt different. She was a part of something. A great collective like an armada of ships on a dark sea, and she was at the wheel of every last one. With an instinctual nod, the great darkness shifted on her command. She was Dark Arachne.

Dark Marvel smiled, holding the heart piece to her chest, while Dark Arachne did the same. The pieces fused into their suits, pulsed with negative light against their chests.

Carol held out her hand to Jessica. “I told you. You would see if you only embraced it.”

“There’s something you might have forgotten about our relationship,” Jessica said, taking Carol’s hand in hers and kissing the knuckles. “Out there, Captain Marvel is in control. In here, these boots do the walking.”

Dark Marvel’s confidence and beatific grin faded. Understanding crossed her face and she snarled, but Jessica wouldn’t let go.

“You’re mine now, Dark Marvel. My Queen, my Lover, my Confidante.”

“No,” Carol whispered, still struggling to pull away. Out there, in the world that made sense, she was one of the most powerful beings in the universe. She should have been able to flick Jessica away with zero effort.

But in here, bolstered by the Spinnerets, Jessica Drew had all the power. Because that’s the way Carol liked it. She wanted someone to be the Captain Marvel of her heart.

Well, sweetie, you’ve got it, Jessica thought.

As Dark Marvel tried to pull away, frantic to break the connection, to sever the bond, Jessica’s comms beeped. She grinned. Intuitively, she had unblocked it with the power of the Spinnerets at her disposal.

She listened and grinned at Dark Marvel, a salacious smile that could melt hearts. Or one heart, in particular.

“Door’s open,” she said in comms.

The glass dome in the top of the building shattered inward, and Jessica Jones dropped to a knee amid tinkling glass. Shang-Chi dropped down on a rope and Typhoid Mary followed, floating herself down using her own telekinetic powers.

Spider-Woman waved at the group as she held Dark Marvel in place. “Nice entrance.”

Jessica Jones laughed as she stood. “I might figure out these super hero landings yet.” She looked at Spider-Woman in her corrupted form, struggling against Dark Marvel, and held out a hand. “Is this something you need help with?”

“I’ve got it for the moment.” And she did. There was no question that she could contain Carol this way, with this power.

Shang-Chi nodded at Jessica. “I hope there is a plan. Ours was tantamount to finding you.”

Mary held out a parcel. “To give you this.”

It was a shiny metal canister, glossy and alien.

“And what’s that?” Spider-Woman asked. 

Over comms Shuri responded, “That is an experimental bio-electric feedback loop. As you deliver your Venom Blasts into it, it will begin cycling that energy and converting its internal storage into more. It should create a Venom Blast strong enough to take out all of these creatures, and bonus, it won’t kill you to power it.”

"I like not dying," Spider-Woman said. "I did a trial death once; do not recommend." She glanced around. “Zelma keeping Gerry safe?”

Jones shrugged. “Yeah, and I’m sure you knew this, but your baby can wall crawl.”

Spider-Woman grinned again. “We gave up baby-proofing the apartment once we figured that out.”

Dark Marvel renewed her struggle, signaling that the fight was about to continue.

Spider-Woman pulled her close, held her tight, and whispered, “It’s okay, Carol. I’ve got you. You don’t have to struggle anymore.”

In response, she pulsed with that dark purple energy, which Jessica knew she could absorb into the Spinnerets collective. It shot out, at her, at her friends, but before it could do any damage, Spider-Woman pulled it into herself. It strengthened her. God, to have this ability all the time.

Despite embracing the darkness, she was still in control of herself. Her immunity gave her a unique opportunity, and she was taking advantage. She could stay like this all the time, she realized. Be Omega tier. An A-lister. Able to punch gods and get away with it.

But the Spinnerets were enslaved to human will. She had to free them. To destroy their hold on humans and push them back to the darkness. She could figure out what to do with them after that.

Dark Marvel stopped struggling against Spider-Woman, against Dark Arachne, and settled into a hug, her head nestled on Jessica’s shoulder.

“Unfortunately,” Spider-Woman said, “the Spinnerets have taken a lot more humans, and every one of them is an island in this sea of darkness. I need you all to keep them busy, free them if you can, while Carol and I use this Venom Bomb to stop it all.”

“How are you… you?” Mary asked. “You’re covered in them.”

“Best not to think about it. I can be immune and still embrace it. Still control it.”

Shang-Chi nodded. “We will keep the Daredevil and the others busy.”

“My Hell’s Knights,” Carol muttered, clearly angry but unable to do anything about it.

Jones laughed. “Oh, we’re definitely stealing that for a team name at some point.”

Spider-Woman smiled, then hefted the canister. “Good luck. You’re going to need it against them. I can feel them, they’re stronger here at the nexus.”

Jones shrugged, flexing her shoulders and stretching. “We may have gotten a little serum cocktail developed from your little one.” She walked over to the pool of darkness, and it rippled away from her, and where she got too close, it smoked and sizzled. “We’re like god damn antibodies.”

Spider-Woman sighed with relief when Jones stepped away. It was painful, what that did to the darkness. She could feel every inch of it as if it were happening to herself. Best not let that get out, and stop them from fighting their hardest.

Nothing was ever easy in the world of Jessica Drew. And she hated to admit it, but it brought a smile to her lips.

“I’ll take it from here,” she said. “Go punch our friends until they’re our friends again.”

Jones nodded, smirking. Somewhere in this building, Spider-Woman could feel Luke Cage, Danny Rand… the whole contingent. Plus dozens of other agents and humans. Each one was beginning to fracture from the whole, and they needed to end this quickly, lest they have dozens of corrupted Spinneret super heroes all vying for dominance, tearing the world apart. 

She was currently the head of this tangled hydra, and she aimed to keep it that way.

The others delved deeper into the headquarters building, where fighting immediately broke out. Little hurts erupted all over Jessica’s body in connection with the pain Jones and the others delivered. So long as she could feel that, they were under her command. 

She turned to Carol, who had fallen to sullen silence. “Dark Marvel,” she said. “It’s time you had a little bit of freedom.”

Before Carol could respond, Jessica fired up a Venom Blast. Though she was corrupted, covered in the creatures, could feel them all, the Venom Blast was her pure green energy. Carol’s eyes widened in fear.

“What are you?” she cried, trying to pull away, but Jessica held firm with one hand, pulling Carol closer, embracing her.

“I’m everything you want, babe.” She zapped Carol, who cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor as green energy ripped through her. The Spinnerets evaporated off her like smoke. Jessica had been right. Now that Carol wasn’t in control, feeding off the energy in this room, she could be freed.

She reached down and shook Carol as her outfit took on the familiar red and blue, and Carol gasped as she came back to consciousness. Jessica helped her to her feet, careful to keep the Spinnerets at bay. Already they wanted to subsume Carol again. Reclaim what they had lost. Spider-Woman wouldn’t let them. They were like addicts seeking that which perverted them, controlled them.

Carol shook her head as she stood, looking around. “Between this and booze… I’d rather have a hangover,” she said.

Spider-Woman smiled, but said, “We can banter later, Carol. Shuri gave us a way to fight this, but I have a strong suspicion that what this canister can do isn’t enough.”

Jessica tensed as a particularly violent burst hit her in the kidney, probably Jones socking one of the Hell’s Knights in the face. Carol reached out, but Jess held up her free hand to forestall her. “Better not touch until this is over. I’m okay.”

She picked up the canister and held it between them. “I’m supposed to fill this thing with my bio-electric energy. It feeds off that, and replicates it, I guess? Shuri was non-specific.”

“Sounds good. What’s the hold-up?”

“It’s not enough. The amulet super-charged me, and even that barely made this pool ripple. We need to feed it some of your tasty photon energy.”

Shuri piped in on comms. “That is not a good idea, Spider-Woman.”

“Why not?”

“I did not have time to make the canister a universal energy acceptor. It is only designed for your unique bio-electricity, since we did not know what you would have access to in there.”

“What happens if we try to feed it some tasty photon crackers?” Carol asked, joining the comms conversation.

“It could simply explode. Most likely it would attempt to convert it and short out.”

Spider-Woman grimaced. “Well, I think we have to try it. If all else fails, Carol can blast the building from orbit.”

“There are people in here,” Carol started, but Jess waved her off, “We’re running out of options. Call it ‘Plan Jess Made The Wrong Call’.”

An explosion erupted from below them, fire and steel twisting up out of the ground. Carol lifted off, holding Jessica, as the room turned to slag and darkness. Everywhere spiked pain along Jess’s body and she held tight to Carol. She held the Spinnerets at bay as they tried to crawl over Carol, take her back over.

The pool of darkness sluiced down through the wreckage, escaping. “Time’s up. Feed this thing your crackers or whatever,” Jessica said, charging up a sustained Venom Blast in the hand holding the canister.

Carol did as she was told, her free hand lighting up with the glow of photon energy. She leaned into Jessica as her hand touched Jess’s. “If we’re about to blow up, I just wanted to let you know--”

“Yeah, yeah, love is great,” Jessica said, as the pieces of amulet throbbed on their chests, almost angrily. As the canister greedily sucked up every last bit of Venom and Photon Blast they could feed it.

It heated up in Jessica’s hand and began to hum and vibrate. It glowed with both of their energies, a pale green verging on white, and Jessica threw it into the nexus of the retreating pool of inky darkness.

It shattered and sparked, subsumed by the Spinnerets. It disappeared briefly, then bubbled as the discharging energy sizzled away the creatures, but it died almost as soon as it had begun. Fizzled out.

Through the wrecked floor came Daredevil, coated in that waxy blackness. Flying uncontrolled through the air as Shang-Chi, or a copy of him, propelled out of the wreckage, following Daredevil’s arc as they collided into the ceiling, dropping plaster around them.

From below, Mary yelled, and flames roiled up all around the retreating pool of inky darkness, holding it in place.

Jessica Jones fell through the already-broken skylight, pummeling her husband in his Spinneret form, tendrils of the darkness trailing them as they fell. How they got back up there was a mystery, but Misty Knight jumped down after them, and Carol almost lazily shot the woman out of the air with a well-aimed Photon Blast.

“Well, now what?” Jessica asked. “I don’t really wanna do the ‘blow this place up from orbit’ plan.”

“Neither do I, Jess.”

In response, the pieces of amulet pulsed again. “I’m still in control, but I feel it fading.” Jessica looked down at the Spinnerets in their pool of black. “If they start breaking loose and going rogue, we’re going to have a very bad time.”

“If some haven’t already.”

“So I think this is the part where we make the heroic sacrifice, Carol.”

Carol’s eyes widened as she took in Jess’s face. “We?”

“I don’t think this ends any other way. I’ll bring them to me, as best I can, and charge up a Venom Shockwave to knock the humans loose. I’m about tapped out, but I think I can do this. You just focus on ripping that darkness apart. You’re Captain Marvel; show them who keeps this planet safe.”

Carol grinned and caressed Jessica’s face. “We do, Spider-Woman. Always will.”

Jessica focused all her will on this unfamiliar bond inside her, forcing the Spinnerets and the corrupted humans to converge on her point. It was going to take a minute, but they’d come. 

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel took control of the battlefield. The world was righting itself.

She said into comms, “Shuri, put out the word. Evacuate several blocks around Avengers NYC if you can. We’re about to force another relocation.”

“Just do not blow up the one I’m in, and we will be fine,” Shuri said. “Done. New York is used to evacuating around the Avengers. Give it a couple minutes, if you can.”

“Noted. Thanks.” She did a small circuit around the cratered room, noting the gathering darkness and corrupted humans. 

“Jones, if you can get your boyfriend and the rest of the Knights up here, now would be the time.”

“Working on it, Cap. Good to have you back.” Misty and Luke crumpled to a pile, through a wall, and into range. She dusted off her hands as she stepped through.

“Good to be back. Who else is here?”

“Shang-Chi and Typhoid Mary, if you can believe it.” Jessica concentrated on pulling the regular humans in, and they began to gather at the edges of the room as Mary’s fire swirled around the nexus of Spinnerets. 

“She has been very helpful,” Shang-Chi said. “One moment.”

He and his copies dropped Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Colleen Wing into the same pile with Luke Cage and Misty Knight.

They were dead weight. His abilities were useful beyond measure in this fight.

Mary found Shang-Chi, and threw an arm around him, pulling him into a hug. “I should be a good guy more often,” she said, her voice light and perky. Not regular Mary, then, and not the cold, calculating versions either. Jessica hoped it was Typhoid and not Bloody, but Shang-Chi only smiled at her.

“It’s a good side, Mary. Spider-Woman, should we retreat?”

Jessica’s concentration was on holding the Spinnerets and corrupted humans in place, on building up the wave of energy she needed. The amulet pulsed in her suit. The Dark Arachne outfit burned away as she crackled with bio-electric energy.

She screamed wordlessly at first as the connection and control severed. Time ran out.

“Now!” she cried, and the Venom Shockwave burst out of her, pulsing in waves to the beat of her heart. Jones frowned as she was thrown backwards through the hole she’d created moments before.

Carol rode the wave and burned the Spinnerets with Photon energy, a sustained beam that widened and widened until it enveloped the entire circle of fire containing the Spinneret nexus.

She yelled with Spider-Woman, grinning and beautiful. Their hearts pulsed as one as their shared energies did the work neither could do alone.

Shang-Chi formed more copies and used them as a bulwark to protect Mary, who held the energy back with telekinetic force long enough to get them to safety, his copies falling and vanishing as they fled.

The green and yellow energies radiated out, ripping apart all Spinnerets, knocking the humans out, pushing the darkness away. Until all that was left was a tiny pool of inky blackness, shriveled and smoking. No bigger than a poodle.

Jessica’s Shockwave released. She dropped to her knees, gasping and fighting the urge to pass out.

Carol landed next to her, also panting and sweating from the exertion. “I think we did it, Jess,” she managed between breaths.

Jess’s lips cracked into a grin. “Of course we did. Now I’m going to lean on you, but we’re gonna make it look like I’m standing on my own power, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Spider-Woman. C-list in the streets, A-list in my heart.”

Jessica Jones emerged, coughing and tattered. “Gag me. Does that mean we won?”

“Sure does, bestie!” Carol said, flying both of them to Jones, who was picking her way through the rubble, getting to her husband.

“Thank fucking God,” Jones said, extricating a woozy Luke from the pile of Hell’s Kitchen heroes. “I’m sending a bill to the Avengers, is that cool?”

Carol nodded. “I’ll sign off.”

Spider-Woman pulled herself free of Carol, struggling to stand on her own steam. “I hope Zelma likes babysitting, because I cannot deal with a toddler after all this.”

Carol nudged her with an elbow, which almost knocked her down, she was so spent. “Oh, you’ll be fine. We have to deal with the remnants of the Spinnerets, still.” She nodded down to the pool, which was reforming itself, stretching out tendrils. Starting its fight for survival once more.

“Ughhhh,” Jessica groaned. “Can’t we just shoot them into space or something.”

And the considering look on Carol’s face said that wasn’t a terrible idea.

She got official for a moment and became Captain Marvel again. “I’ll get a containment unit over here, and we’ll see if they can survive on, I dunno, Pluto? Nothing out there anybody wants.”

Jessica echoed that sentiment. She had been in control of them. Mindless, formless, seeking only the darkness. Well, what’s darker than the dark side of a used-to-be planet at the outskirts of the solar system?

Get them safe, treat them well. Pick up the pieces and get back to normal.

*****

With containment protocols in place and working, and Luke Cage in charge of recovery efforts at the satellite Avengers HQ office, Carol and Jessica walked into the Sanctum Sanctorum, leaving Shang-Chi and Mary outside. They found Zelma standing with arms folded in front of her, getting verbally dressed down by the one and only Dr. Strange.

“Stop yelling at my new friend, Strange,” Jessica said.

Stephen Strange turned, and Gerry played happily in his arms, pulling at his little goatee. Strange’s cloak flitted about, tapping Gerry’s shoulders playfully. “Mama!” Gerry cried when he caught sight of Jessica, and though she was bone-tired, Jessica took the little monster into her arms and hugged him tight.

Captain Marvel said, “I wasn’t expecting the Avengers back for a few more days.”

“Yes, well, when Shuri hijacks your very secure mental wards to tell you that Captain Marvel is a podperson, you tend to hurry back.” 

“We did what we had to do, Stephen.” Carol held a hand out to Zelma. “I heard you helped Jessica while I was all zombified.”

“Zelma Stanton.” She shook Carol’s hand and Jessica laughed. “Most people get a little flustered when they meet Captain Marvel for the first time. She’s a keeper, Strange.”

“I agree, despite the events of the day.” He eyed the broken heart amulet still attached to Carol and Jessica’s suits. “I see you had some help from the Heart of Dark and Light.”

“It showed us what we needed to see,” Jessica said defensively. “Sorry we, uh, broke it.”

“That’s its purpose, Spider-Woman. To connect you and guide you. To bring you through the darkness, back into light.”

“Well, it damn sure worked.”

Zelma said, “I’m glad it helped. Once I get out from under all the chores Strange is gonna put on me for this, we should get coffee.”

Dr. Strange cleared his throat. “You did exactly as I expected you to.”

“I got into the artifacts you explicitly said not to,” Zelma said, confused.

“You do not place a warning like that without knowing it is going to be disobeyed. You didn’t touch the decapitation cabinet, did you?”

“I like my head where it is, thank you.”

“And empty of parasitic bugs, no doubt.”

“Fill you with parasitic bugs,” Zelma muttered, and Dr. Strange betrayed the barest hint of a smile.

“Anyway, the damage to the Sanctum notwithstanding, it’s heartening to see my apprentice handled herself well and kept people safe. Now if there’s nothing else, we have some spells to conjure repairs and new wards.”

Jessica tried to pry the amulet out of her jacket, but it had fused. Carol’s piece looked similarly merged. “I uh, think it’s gonna take a little bit to get this back to you,” Jessica said.

“It’s curious that you chose that one, Zelma. Do you know its origin?”

“I just knew it was supposed to help, to guide.”

“What about it?” Jess asked.

“It was created by a sorceress long ago, originally meant to tear apart a kingdom by throwing its King and Queen into turmoil against each other. The enchantment backfired, though, and it strengthened their resolve all the more.”

“What sorceress?” Jess asked, suddenly anxious.

Dr. Strange eyed her curiously for a moment. “Oh, that’s right. You have history with her. Morgan le Fay.”

Jess laughed. Couldn’t help it. After years of being at odds with the sorceress, of her coming closer to kill Jessica than anyone else ever had, her machinations saved her. Saved them. 

“Keep it for now,” Strange said. “We have work to do, and we can retrieve it later.”

Captain Marvel nodded. “Oh, we’re out of your hair, Strange. I’ll catch up with the rest of the Avengers in a bit.”

They waved goodbye, Gerry in tow, and outside Shang-Chi and Mary talked quietly, very close together.

“Give me a minute to talk to them,” Jessica said to Carol, handing Gerry over. “My ragtag team did good.”

“Your super-heroic team did great,” Carol said, pecking Jess on the cheek as she walked over to the pair.

“I just want to thank you both again. Mary, I had my doubts, but you came through, no matter which one of you was in control.”

“I kind of liked it,” Mary admitted. “I don’t normally get to be awake for the fighting, but I think a part of me wanted to see it through.”

I bet I know which part, Jessica thought. Mary and Shang-Chi were practically attached at the hip.

“It has been an interesting day, to say the very least,” Shang-Chi agreed. “I believe Mary and I will work together for a time, see if she likes being a ‘good guy’ as she puts it.”

“Hey, I was gonna ask,” Jess said, “what were you doing in Jersey anyway?”

Shang-Chi smiled cryptically. “Sometimes I put myself on a path, not knowing where it will lead, and it often leads to the right place at the right time. It’s something like a wanderer’s credo.”

“Well, I’m thankful for it all the same. Couldn’t have managed this without you all.”

Mary nodded. “I hope to run into you again soon.”

Jessica shook hands with them both. “Good luck with your weird team-up, I guess?”

“We shall likely not need it, but thank you,” Shang-Chi answered, and they took their leave.

Jessica smiled to see them go. Carol came to stand beside her, watching them round a corner. It was still dark; the Spinnerets were handled, but their ability to hold the sky hostage seemed to be intact.

“I think I accidentally played matchmaker tonight,” Jessica said.

“You’re just a big old softie, as always,” Carol teased.

“Right now I want my big old softie bed, but someone destroyed my apartment.”

“We probably need a hotel,” Carol agreed, ignoring the jab at her. 

“We can always go back to your secret base.”

Carol grinned, kissing Jessica before lifting off with both of them held close.

“Our secret base.”

Jessica secured Gerry and covered his face so he’d be protected during the flight, and snuggled in close to Carol.

With the darkness persisting from the Spinnerets, the evernight sky blanketed them as they rose higher. 

Captain Marvel rocketed into motion, the light from her energy streaking out behind her, bleeding away the dark of the sky, letting the sun shine through once more.

Jessica Drew and Carol Danvers were a quandary to the outside world. The light shone on the darkness. Carol Danvers might be the light to a world that needs a hero, but Jessica Drew is the light to Carol Danvers. And she wouldn't want it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming along on this little journey with me! As always, stan CarolJess and I hope you are surviving and staying safe in this pandemic!

**Author's Note:**

> Updates uh whenever I have the spare time to keep this thing going.
> 
> Stan Jessica Drew, stan CarolJess!


End file.
